Live rock or dry rock?

[d2mini]

I don't see the difference as far as the number of pests you will have on your rock? There are tons of predatory crabs and shrimp, algae, anemone and other pests in the ocean that will be living on the rock.

The difference is that any "pests" from TBS are easy to deal with and usually not detrimental to your reef. It's not a big deal to pick off a crab here and there.
I have set up several TBS tanks and have never ended up with nuisance algae, aiptasia, anemones, etc. And no phosphate issues.

As pointed out above, you can go dry or live and have a nice reef, but we can't lump all live rock into one barrel so to speak. And most find that the benefits of TBS rock far outweigh a few unwanted critters.

 

[skp]

After many years of dealing with every unwanted thingsin my tanks, I have decided that the worst are:

1. Colonial hydroids (the kind that are in the flexible tubes).
2. Vermatid snails
3. Feather dusters

The Colonial hydroids are invasive. The vermatid snails will cover your tank in slime strings. The feather dusters will cover your equipment.

I'm also assuming that the vermatid snails and feather dusters, once there are a lot of them, will strip the water column of food and calcium which you probably want to make the most available for your sps.

This time I went dead rock, live sand (just because I didn't want to wash it) and microbacter7 and seeded with a small rock for coralline. The small rock or live sand brought in the tiny feather dusters.

 

[brett559]

Live rock all the way. My last tank had live rock - I added fish quicker, but it was a huge pain - mojanos, aiptasia, worms, etc. You name it, it had it.

Some may not like this approach, but I bought dry rock from BRS, added a bottle of bio-spira and added fish after a few days. Cycling was painless and easy. Tank has done great ever since. DRY ROCK!

 

[FarmerTy]

My vote is dry rock. You get to control to some extent what goes into the tank from that point.

 

[mcozad829]

Comes down to completely opinion with this topic, both certainly have their merit. For ME dry rock is the only way to go for two reasons... 1. hitchhikers 2. cost,
you will save enough money buy going dry rock you can buy a nice reef diversity CUC from LA that doesn't have pests in it. Just my .02

 

[shifty51008]

You can bring in hitchhickers in your tank just by adding corals, macro algae ect unless very strict qt.

Imo Live rock is the way to go, even though ive never used tbs rock i did get tatoka rock from aquarium techknowledgy and couldnt be happier comes straight from the ocean to your house no middle stops inbetween. Yes i did have some die off but not much the life on tge rock was amazing, the few bad hitchickers were well worth it.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi all, in my opinion, high quality live rock is the only way to go. Live rock is the main biological filtration for your tank, and not only that it supplies an amazing amount of biodiversity to your system. Dead rock is just that dead, no biological life of any kind, and adding a bottle of bacteria to the rock once in the tank is not the same as using a very high quality live rock. Bacteria does not make a tank, yes it helps with the cycle when using dead rock, but there is so much more to a thriving reef system then just bacteria. The only way to get this life is by using live rock to seed the dead rock, thus defeating the dry rock theory of not introducing unwanted hitchhikers or pest to a system. Live rock cost a lot more, but it is well worth it in the long run. :fish1:

 

[greaps]

Done both live rock, and dry rock. With BRS pukani even after bleaching and acid washing I had a major hair algae problem on a new tank. On a second tank I used kp aquatic live rock from the Florida Keys, and on a new tank had zero algae issues.

I for one will not use Pukani again. But I am not entirely against dry rock, my current rebuild is going to use maco rocks.

The live rock was outstanding by the way, I just want to try something different, really going to focus hard on a unique aquascape, and that just can't be done with live rock.

 

[Kingsixx]

:fish1: Hi all, in my opinion, high quality live rock is the only way to go. Live rock is the main biological filtration for your tank, and not only that it supplies an amazing amount of biodiversity to your system. Dead rock is just that dead, no biological life of any kind, and adding a bottle of bacteria to the rock once in the tank is not the same as using a very high quality live rock. Bacteria does not make a tank, yes it helps with the cycle when using dead rock, but there is so much more to a thriving reef system then just bacteria. The only way to get this life is by using live rock to seed the dead rock, thus defeating the dry rock theory of not introducing unwanted hitchhikers or pest to a system. Live rock cost a lot more, but it is well worth it in the long run. :fish1:

I'm a bit confused, I thought that by adding bacteria to dead rock that you were in fact "seeding" the dead rock and eventually turning it into live rock. Is that not the case?

 

[d2mini]

I'm a bit confused, I thought that by adding bacteria to dead rock that you were in fact "seeding" the dead rock and eventually turning it into live rock. Is that not the case?

There is a lot more to quality live rock straight out of the ocean than bacteria. Tons of tiny organisms that help break stuff down and make up an ecosystem is what you will get with rock from places like TBS. Stuff you just won't get from starting with dry rock. In the ocean one day, in your tank the next. Can't beat it.

 

[karimwassef]

LIVE ROCK or at least Live Rock heavy (50/50 live/dry at least).

Every tank will get parasites of some kind over time. You need a resilient system to handle it or you'll just be suffering later.

Start with live rock only and let it run without coral and little fish. Add traps to catch the bad guys.

Dry rock was the reason I got Dinos. There's no bug worse than these things - trust the victims who've broken down their tanks over and over.

Bleached or Baked or Acid-cured rock is the same as dry rock. If you end up with a bug that your rock can't handle, you'll have a bug explosion. Without the controls that would have come on the live rock, you'll be in pain.

Nature is messy and complicated. I'd take her messy, but usually balanced mix of good and bad rather than try to start with dead rock.

 

[Patrick Cox]

You can bring in hitchhickers in your tank just by adding corals, macro algae ect unless very strict qt....

I agree with this point. I started my current tank with Pukani Dry Rock only. No LR. And I have dealt with Red Planaria Flatworms and Asterina Starfish. These obviously came in on Corals. I haven't decided what to do on my next tank but I am leaning towards Tampa Bay Saltwater because it took my current tank over a year to get to the point where I could reasonably support SPS.

 

[skp]

There is a lot more to quality live rock straight out of the ocean than bacteria. Tons of tiny organisms that help break stuff down and make up an ecosystem is what you will get with rock from places like TBS. Stuff you just won't get from starting with dry rock. In the ocean one day, in your tank the next. Can't beat it.

It might be due to my incompetence but after a few years, the biodiversity was gone and I was left with copepods, amphipods, aiptasia, vermatid snails, feather dusters, pineapple sponges and colonial hydroids. Even all the different colors of coralline was replaced by just two colors, red and purple. Everything else eventually died off.

 

[MBMAX]

It might be due to my incompetence but after a few years, the biodiversity was gone and I was left with copepods, amphipods, aiptasia, vermatid snails, feather dusters, pineapple sponges and colonial hydroids. Even all the different colors of coralline was replaced by just two colors, red and purple. Everything else eventually died off.

that is what happen to most. that is why dry rock all the way.

 

[dbk111]

When getting live rock does it make sense keep it in a BB tank with only the rock and saltwater for a week or two to make it easier to find and remove any possible bad hitchhikers?

 

[shifty51008]

You can do that or you can easily make a trap from a old plastic pop bottle and some food.

 

[shred5]

I have used all of it. Dry rock, Gulf rock, live rock from all over.

I loved Dry rock the first time I tried Marco Rocks. But where ever this new dry Rock is being mined from it is way too loaded with phosphates for me. Plus you miss all the cool thing that could possible come out of live rock. I have had gobies in live rock before.

Gulf rock has the best biodiversity with out a doubt and one of the best is TB because they ship in water.. Gulfview, sealife inc. are also good. That said it really needs to be quarantined a long time, all gulf rock can be loaded with nasties and sometime allot of them. Anything from welks to isopods. Gulf rock is also very heavy since it is mined rock compared to other live rock rock. Personally I like gulf rock if you are setting up a tank fresh. Not sold on the Walt rock, I just dont like the look of it but I have not tried any of it.

Another new option is BRS air shipped rock this could be close to above but will obviously have more die off. I would like to try this it sounds closer to the rock we used to get in the hobby.

I like Premium aquatics mando cured. It has great shapes and is loaded with coraline and almost no pest period. It can almost bypass curing with this rock and it is very light. I have added it to existing tank with rock in it already. Basically if you need to move fast this is the rock too use.

Real reef has nice live rock too, great option for a tank that needs a few pieces added.

I think the real problem with live rock is we dont get the quality of live rock we used to. Shipping by boat instead of air because the cost of shipping has hurt and the rock is pretty much bare. This can be remedied by buy gulf rock or some places still air ship but at a cost like the new BRS stuff.

If people saw the rock we got when I got in the hobby from the gulf before aqua-culturing or even rock from Hawaii and even early Fiji rock. Wow. Most of the live rock now everything is scraped off and the rock ends up several days on a ship leading to bare rock because little survives. Now with gas prices dropping so much air shipping seems to be coming back and this will change things again. Aquacultured really was your only choice for massive biodiversity for a while.

I would really like to give BRS new air rock a try but they only ship in certain quantities to big for what I need right now. I bet this stuff is amazing and close the quality we used to get in the hobby.

 

[cloak]

+1 live rock

It definitely sucks when you get some pests, (no doubt) but come on man, do some work... If you just wanted to sit on the couch and stare at a tank I think there's an app for that.
It can't all be gravy.

 

[d2mini]

It might be due to my incompetence but after a few years, the biodiversity was gone and I was left with copepods, amphipods, aiptasia, vermatid snails, feather dusters, pineapple sponges and colonial hydroids. Even all the different colors of coralline was replaced by just two colors, red and purple. Everything else eventually died off.

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.

 

[jonwright]

I thought I'd start off with dry base rock and then add a bit of live rock from a local fish store.

That was about 2 years ago. I took that tank down and then about 9 months ago took the LR and dry rock and stored it in a 35 gal brute can by a window that gets ambient sun light. Heater, power head 1/2 down the middle and skimmer and let it go. I did nothing but top off the fresh water. That's it.

So, even after all this time the dry rock has never developed any corraline and still looks barren and brownish. The live rock from LFS, as you can see, has bits of corraline and some sponge on it.

Soooo....personally when I'm done with my big tank I won't be putting the dry rock back in. I don't *see* any life on it at all - and you can't tell me it hasn't had time to seed. Bacterial population? Perhaps. But I've about convinced myself to go all TBS for the tunicates and other life (even in the dark recesses of the tank).

Now the next step would be to do a phosphate test and see if there are any sponges in the dark further down in the can.

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