Tuffa Rock?

[winland]

Has anyone used Tuffa Rock in their FOWLR tanks?
I live in Ohio and "raw" tuffa rock is available at a reasonable price from some of the farmers fields.
If I cure the tuffa rock in a saltwater "bath" for a couple weeks, just like "LR" , should I have any problems using tuffa rock in my tank?

winland

 

[wld1783]

Used 200 Lbs in my SPS tank...Love it. Just have some live rock or rubble in the sump to seed it.

Bill

 

[Reef Aquatics]

Interesting...cause from what I see...Tufa rock leaches out alot of Phosphates...

A long time ago I tried using it and had nothing but phosphate problems..once I
removed it...and did a bunch of water changes...phosphate problem went away..

I talked to Robert Fenner about it and he said that most likely the Tufa rock was
the cause of the super high phosphates..

Have you had any problems with high phosphates?

 

[wld1783]

Reef Aquatics

I have not experienced a bad algae bloom...however I did get some expected green hair algae after I put 100Lbs of rubble in my sump.

I do have a Phosphate Reactor and use Phosphate Pads in the sump.

For the cost I still stand by Tufa rock...It my have phosphate but hey thats like curing live rock eventually you will remove it. For the price you cant beat it and after 4 months all my rock is covered with coraline algae. Also its a lot lighter than Fiji which my make it a better host for bacteria.

Bill

 

[Reef Aquatics]

wld1783...Oh I agree with you...
I was just curious...if you had any problems with it...

Like you said...Im wondering if I would have let it cure for awile...if it would have
ended up being ok...but instead I got rid of it all and got Fiji Premium, but the
good news with that...is that Live Rock is much cheaper in Florida then many
other places ive seen...and plus I paid wholesale for it right from one of the
Fish Farms...So I got it even cheaper...

 

[winland]

Do you know the origin of the Tuffa rock that you had?
What state or area did it come from?

winland

 

[wld1783]

Only let it cure for a week. I got the rock from www.reefdepot.net

Bill

 

[dew2loud1]

I've used good ole northeast ohio tuffa base in my 120 sps, not a problem but it was in someone elses tank for a year or two first. There are hundreds of hobbyists using tuffa out west some entirely in place of fiji etc with no problems, calcium carbonate is calcium carbonate, you do have to pressure wash the heck out of it about three or four times to dislodge organic matter which i bet is where a lot of the phosphate problems come from.

 

[JHemdal]

Some of the Ohio tufa rock (not tuffa) that I've seen over the years had very high iron content. I never worried about that in FW tanks - but always selected the less orange/red rocks for use in FO marine tanks. Never tried any in a reef....

Jay

 

[m2434]

I have always used tufa and have never had any algae problems (5+ years), at least until I bought some live rock... since adding a few peices of LR, I have had to run a phosphate reactor to keep the algae in check.