Live rock or dry rock?

[seamonster124]

I started with dry and I have all the cool creatures that came with frags and none of the pests. Also saved a ton and did not rape the ocean. I would never go LR again

 

[d2mini]

I have all the cool creatures that came with frags

And what might that be?
The only thing I get with frags are frags. Especially after a good bath in Bayer.

 

[Joke]

Most populare comment is dry rock and i would go with it to and its cheaper

 

[KingTriton1]

It really just depends on what you are looking for in a rock. I prefer dry rock myself, however everyone has a different purpose for what they want out of their rock.

Live Rock:

Pros:
Life outside of what you put in it
An instant cycle
Coralline algae at start up
Possible invertebrates and corals on the rock

Cons:
Much harder to aquascape
Possibility of introducing unwanted pest like algae, crabs, corals, and shrimp
Pricier
A little bit more of a hassle in terms of going to the airport

Dry Rock:

Pros:
Less chance of pest
Makes aquascaping MUCH easier
Very Porous
Cheaper
Lots of holes for your fish/corals

Cons:
Rock takes about a year+ to grow coralline algae
Some will leach phosphate in the beginning if not properly treated prior
Cycling will take much longer
Having to clean the rock off before introducing into tank

 

[cloak]

I'll break all those rules and get it done...

Keeping a happy healthy reef tank is actually very simple, it's just takes time for your mind to adjust... GL. .

 

[skp]

What you can see on the surface.
But what about INSIDE the rock where all kinds of things can thrive? Just because you lost some pretty sponges and tunicates doesn't mean your entire eco-system died off.

For me, the things that I wanted to keep and that ended up dying out were different pods of different shape and color, different color coralline, different types of macro algae, peanut worms, different types of snails and chitons and some crustaceans like skeleton shrimp. Pretty sponges and tunicates seemed to last.

I'm sure you're right that there is a lot of stuff in the rock that isn't seen on the surface but I don't know what else can be in there long term when a tank is a closed system. The things that have the same food source will outcompete each other pretty quickly in a closed system (I think there is a biology term for this). Perhaps one can try culturing and feeding the tank live phyto, rotifiers, zooplankton to try and keep more types of life? My guess would be that we cannot provide the vast variety of food sources as the ocean does, thus we will end up with life that eat fish poo, the various types of frozen and dried foods available in the hobby, algae and each other.

 

[RWEngineer]

Man made dry rock

 

[Patrick Cox]

For those advocating Dry Rock, how do you get a diverse population of coralline algae in your tank? Or maybe that is not important to you?

My current tank has been in place for 2 1/2 years and I started with Dry Pukani and while I do have some coralline algae, it is not that diverse or interesting.

 

[Reverse_Reefer]

I was thinking about this too. Nothing beats cured live rock but for aquascaping using dryrock for hours outside the tank to build structures before is nice.

I might try Caribsea Life Rock or Walt Smith 2.0.