Why scare newcomers into using dry rock?

[igot2gats]

I understand that people like control and get scared about "pests", but I am I alone in feeling like you miss out on a HUGE part of what makes reefing awesome when you use almost all (or all) dry rock?

I think the biggest reason is COST. You are talking about the difference between $3 or less dry rock vs $5-$10 per pound live rock. Factor in overnight shipping and the cost almost doubles in most cases.

This is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE factor. For someone starting out, eliminating costs that they don't need is a big part of it. Since there isn't a lot of ways to cut corners in this hobby, utitlizing one like this that can't hurt is a big money saver.

It just depends on how big of a hurry you are in.

This is probably the #2 reason, if you ask me. I will never understand it, but for some reason, people think it's a big race to get a tank going....and the faster they get it going, the better their tank will look.
This hobby is by no means a race. It's a marathon. I know that sounds cliche, but it's the absolute truth.

The best part about reefing, IMO, has always been seeing what comes alive on your rock/sand as the tank matures. It's not the bacteria or the "scary" aiptasia or mantis shrimp, it's all of the other stuff that you are GUARANTEED to get, which you can't artificially recreate: sponges, feather dusters, random corals, non-decorative clams, crabs, snails, starfish, pods, worms, macro algaes and countless other random and safe creatures that turn up over time.

Everyone has their reasons what the most fun thing about reefing is. To me, it's the set up process, and it's not even close what number 2 is.

The picking out of equipment, blueprinting the fish and coral you want, the placement of where you want your tank, etc.

The rock is not on my priority list. Get the dry rock and be done with it. I really don't care what beneficial creatures come on live rock.

Not that interesting to me.


Lastly, there's another big advantage to having dry rock: you have ZERO timetable of how soon the rock has to be wet. You can re-arrange it, until your hearts content on what formation you want. Then, put it in the tank.

 

[ktownhero]

No fears, just simple math, or devotion to the preservation of reefs.

My other guess, is with the explosion of tanks, GOOD quality live rock became hard to come by, and like in any hobby that has an explosion, there are those that choose to thrive on it, selling substandard product to the unsuspecting.


cuzza, simply amazing tank. It's all in the know, not in the wallet.

Which is better for preserving natural reefs? Harvesting rock from the ocean that was specifically planted 20 years ago for the cultivation of eco-friendly live rock or tearing up live reefs, bleaching the rock, and selling it dry?

This is rhetorical, of course, but my point isn't to crap on dry rock but just to demonstrate that Eco friendliness isn't an absolute. All of the other arguments for dry rock I now understand but this one I don't buy.

 

[E46Twist]

I am going to agree with most of the others and say that when setting up a large tank, LR can be an expenses. I have around 175lbs total of live and dry rock for my reefing and I think I bough about 10lbs of live rock to get it all started. To buy that much LR would have cost me almost $800 at my LFS. I have seen no problems with using it to seed and while it did take 6months or so to LOOK live, it was colonized with bacteria very quickly. I pick up rock for $1/pound or less from people that have it laying around, cook it, seed it, and find a use for it. I have also never had to deal with a single pest. When I feel I need my diversity, I'll cal garf.

 

[Ztrain]

Yah know I was all gung ho for the steryle tank thingie..... So today I bought a 2.5 pound chunk of LR..... Yeah yeah I know. Got one neat snail and a couple so so snails and at least one micro unidentified snail. I hope I got some good bacteria and algae's. Ohh and a bunch of blue starfish I guess. We'll see what else develops. I have some type of purple anemone or something with tentacles. We'll see what that turns in too.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Which is better for preserving natural reefs? Harvesting rock from the ocean that was specifically planted 20 years ago for the cultivation of eco-friendly live rock or tearing up live reefs, bleaching the rock, and selling it dry?

This is rhetorical, of course, but my point isn't to crap on dry rock but just to demonstrate that Eco friendliness isn't an absolute. All of the other arguments for dry rock I now understand but this one I don't buy.

You are correct to not buy into the "eco-friendly" argument - both from dry, natural rock and artificial rock purveyors. But the reason isn't what most people think - equating harvesting of live rock for reef tanks to destruction of a reef is similar in implausibility to equating harvesting a single tree in a forest with an axe to clear-cutting the whole thing with bulldozers and skidders.

 

[Dannigirl]

I thought I was going to get cool stuff with my live rock- all I got was algae. :-( The Coraline is pretty but I got nothing else- no pests, nothing. The quick cycle was good though.

 

[Bielaz]

As a newbie, I havent had any true issues with buying live rock apart from cost, I bought it at my lfs for 3$/lbs and have been happy with it since. and I must admit, it is very fun to see random invertebrates pop out of it from time to time again.

 

[Bielaz]

Like you, I a am returning to the hobby after several years absence. On top of the prevalent use of dead rock I am amazed at how quick people are to drop their live rock in acid, Clorox, freshwater or Easy-bake Oven, whatever will kill it. Part of the fun of the hobby for me was having something show up in your tank and having no idea it was their. (porcelain crab after 2 years was way cool.) I have had frustrating times with algae, including being taken over by a hitch-hiking macro, but it never lessened the amazement at life on those stupid pieces of rock.

I hope the hobby has not become too sterile.

Forgive the rantings of a soon to be old fart.

dont worry, your rantings are a seed of knowledge to us beginning reefers, and just fyi, i agree with you, live rock should come with life, aquariums shouldnt be sterilized. -the future of aquarists. :fish1:

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi everyone, what do you consider live rock? I will give you a hint, it's not just the bacteria on the rock or the purple coralline algae on it. For the people who recommend dry rock you are setting a lot of people new to the hobby up for failure. The most important part of the tank is the biological filtration and the use of live rock will help ensure a very healthy and diversified biological filtration system. Do not skimp on this part of your setup, live rock will give you a very user friendly biological filtration system for the beginning aquarist, something you will never acquire with using dry rock only. Their is a reason live rock is expensive as they must preserve as much life as possible on it. Buy the best live rock you can find, you will not be sorry you did. :fish1:

 

[tmz]

I do not think live rock has an advantage over dry rock in terms of establishing a bacterial filter . I'm not sure what is meant by a diversified bacterial filtration system that you will never acquire ,otherwise. Bacteria are quite ubiquitous. If there is food and necessary nuteints for them they will wax,if not they wane.

Much of the live rock comes in as mostly damp dead rock. Some of it provides a mostly transient display of life which is fun to watch while it lasts but then folks are often left with pests that plague the system for years . Some of it that is shipped wet can bring in some very nice and interesting organisms like sponges and even corals but may also harbor hiden mantis shrimp, aiptaisa or othee pest anemones ,etc.Granted you get pests anyway as you add life to the tank but likely less.

Personally, I started years ago with live rock only . Now , I'd go dry rock which I'd cure for a PO4 control and cycling and do some seeding with pest free established live rock or substrate and/or coraline. The dry rock I've added to my system over the years is satisfactory and lively now.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi TMZ, live rock needs to be of the highest quality or you will not benefit from it. Like I've said many times the bacteria on or in the rock is only a small part of the filtration that live rock offers over dry rock. You will never have the amount of life and biodiversity that live rock offers over dry rock unless you seed it with live rock. Every tank that I have started from scratch was established with the highest quality live rock available at the time. You get what you pay for. Same with live sand, all the sand I use in my systems is collected from the reefs off Miami. :fish1:

 

[Bryopsis]

With my own experiences, flatworms and bristleworms quietly grew to insane populations..
I like to vinegar dip all my rockwork and then let them dry out, then cycle..

 

[shermanator]

:fish1: Hi TMZ, live rock needs to be of the highest quality or you will not benefit from it. Like I've said many times the bacteria on or in the rock is only a small part of the filtration that live rock offers over dry rock. You will never have the amount of life and biodiversity that live rock offers over dry rock unless you seed it with live rock.

Can you specifically list what part of the "filtration" is missing from dry rock? Of course there is less biodiversity, but what filtration are you speaking of?

When filtration is usually applied to live rock, it's in regard to nitrification and de-nitrification. Dry rock accomplishes both of those just as well as live rock, provided you properly cycle the dry rock.

The only thing I can think of that might aid in "filtration" that you get with live rock is aiptasia and feather duster worms. If you really wanted those (or any other type of worm) and had dry rock, you could always buy them.

 

[JammyBirch]

I am new to reefing and went with dry rock...I like it better because I could buy a bunch of it and set up the aquascape how I liked it, plus I didn't have a chunk of good reef blasted and ruined so I could have "real" live rock. Not that big of a deal to me, cycling isn't faster either with real live rock. My tank cycled in three weeks. Personally the hitch hikers are pretty cool and as others mentioned getting some bad stuff is good to learn from.

To each there own, my next tank will probably be dry rock again.

 

[dthorn]

The part of filtration that's missing!? All of the above. As others have mentioned bacteria is only a small part of the life in and on real ocean live rock. All those feather dusters and sponges, tunicates, pods, urchins, snails, crabs, etc, etc. These things eat algae, waste, and many other things.

Really I just wanted to add to this fun discussion. Everyone is mentioning the plagues you might get from live rock but what about the plagues caused by dry rock. With nothing growing on it algae finds a way into the system one way or another and has no competition for food or space. I would be willing to wager that more new people quit the hobby because of algae growing everywhere than people who got bad hitchhikers from live that took over. I know I had major algae problems starting my 2nd tank with all dry.

And the ones that do end up with something really bad from live don't always tell or even know the whole story. For example I bet many of them started with dry and some seed live rock to get things started. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me and all of the experts encourage it. You are adding a few rocks full of who knows what to an empty system. Then the most aggressive thing in your seed rock spreads through the whole system with no other life to slow it down and either you quit or the tank crashes and of course the one piece of liverock is blamed.

If you want to use liverock it should be from the ocean and should at least be the majority of your rock. This way you get the diversity but it is much more balanced as it was in the ocean. Yes, eventually a troublemaker may outcompete everything else but not very likely. Paulb puts all kinds of stuff in his tank on a regular basis but has no concern because he truly has an ocean in a box and it remains balanced because the regular addition of diversity keeps things balanced good and bad.

Now to move on to the real cause of people being against liverock and it's all through this thread but I seem to be the only one who noticed. It is here over and over.... I paid 4, 5, 6 dollars a pound at lfs for live rock. This is followed by statements like I don't see the difference between dry and live, I got Ebola, flat worms crashed my tank, aiptasia took over. Let me be the first to point out that none of these people bought liverock and none of these outbreaks came from liverock.

Real ocean liverock is much different than fish store live rock. It comes from the ocean and is covered in life and generally runs close to 20 dollars a pound retail not in the five dollar range. The 5-10 dollar a pound stuff is dry rock they put in a tank and label liverock. It may have been in the tank for an hour or a year and all of the life in and on it came in as hitchhikers on corals and in fishwater. The strong ones, and usually bad ones survive. So when you finally buy it you get a rock full of bacteria, lots of bad critters with a few good ones, and if you buy the piece with the aiptasia you might get some with some coralline.

After about 3 years I still consider myself a noob but now I am a very well read noob that has developed a lot of knowledge. By doing things my way and developing my own theories I learn much more much faster than I would following the status quo. People get so stuck on their way being right they fail to realize there are many ways to do things.

It honestly makes me laugh that people are still discussing the best way to cycle a tank. It's because of closed minded people. Using a fish is cruel, ghost feed your tank, put a dead shrimp in there. What a joke when will people accept that cycling period is a thing of the past. I've set up 5 reef tanks in less than three years using different methods and haven't cycled any of them or tested for ammonia.

My signature line should say reefing like a racecar driver. I don't spend a year planning (maybe that's why I keep buying bigger tanks) I want the tank up so I can fill it and watch it grow. I set up my 90g about a month ago. 30 corals 18 of them sps and lots of fish. I'm watching things grow and thrive while most would still be waiting for the cycle to finish. Probably not a wise route for most.

Some people have a green thumb I happen to have two wet salty thumbs. I set up my 56g with reefsaver dry rock and caribsea arag alive and ocean direct live sand and started adding fish and corals in less than a week with no cycle or water changes just to prove to myself that bagged live sand wasn't a scam like everyone keeps saying.

What does any of this have to do with live rock versus dry... who knows but this is why I don't come on the forum often. Once I get started adhd takes over and I can't stop. That and I like to talk a lot and share my crazy theories. All driven, by logic, strong analytical skills, and a strong drive to do what works for me instead of doing what everyone says is right. If anyone ever wants to discuss ideas feel free to send me a message. It's much more fun instead of talking about which popular way is best, talking about a new way all together.

Hopefully someone doesn't read this and decide to throw a dozen different fairy wrasse in an uncycled 56g with 3 baby occy clowns, a possum wrasse and a rabbitfish like I did just to prove you can instacycle a tank with just bagged live sand and to see if overcrowding the fairies would work like an african cichlid tank. Forgot the mccosker and the line spot flashers. The results were spectacular and as expected. Just like cichlids there was too much madness for anyone to establish territories. Without territory to defend there is no reason for aggression. Forgot to mention they were all males, I'm sure with females in the mix it would have got ugly. Anyways I better quit before I give too many people bad ideas.

Happy reefing and back to the rock discussion!

 

[ap123]

I honestly believe there's more than one way to build a successful reef tank.

I'm not so afraid of pests, but. Large or small, most of us have a budget, and decisions have to be made on where and when to splurge. In the past I've had systems I purchased used, so I splurged on excellent LR and upgraded equipment a little at a time.

If my budget was unlimited, I'd love to begin with the same rock I used when setting up my first tank--very fresh Vanuatu (sp?).

Now I'm setting up a larger system, beginning from scratch, I'm going to invest more in the lights from the start and use mostly dry rock. I've seen successful tanks built from dry rock, and I'm hoping I'll be able to do the same. This is new to me, and I'm sure there will be a learning curve, but ime there always is.

 

[Green Chromis]

:fish1: Hi dthorn, I'm glad your live sand in a bag worked, I use fresh sand collected from the ocean, which includes all those bad worms and other living organism that thrive in the sand on our local reef areas where all our hard and soft corals live. Keep up the good fight and maybe we can help a new reefer or two to setup a new tank the way we use to in the old days, the 90's and early 2000's before all this save the reef, don't buy live rock nonsense started. The locals where most of the rock is collected use more live rock for building homes and roads than we will ever use in the aquarium trade. One more thing, everyone should dive on a reef a few months after a Typhoon or Hurricane moves through an area, you would be surprised at all the new live rock that is torn from the bottom of the ocean and becomes a new reef area. :fish1:

 

[dkeller_nc]

While I would not advise a true newbie to setup a tank in the way that you describe (no time allowed for cycling), you are very much following in the path of reef tank history. It was very common, perhaps even universal, to set a tank up in the early 1990's with live rock that was cured in a separate container, and stock it with fish and corals the same day. In fact, this is how it's done at big aquarium conventions by well-heeled vendors that setup a huge display tank in a few hours.

And you are spot-on that much of the $5 - $8 per pound "live rock" at the LFS doesn't really resemble true live rock obtained from a reputable vendor like Premium Aquatics or Tampa Bay Saltwater. And if I can convince them, I always advise a true newbie to go this route - I distinctly remember spending hours looking at all of the fascinating micro-life on the live rock that I set my first reef tank up with in 1990.

That said, I do question the idea that all of the micro-life is necessary to run a successful reef tank; I've seen quite a number of tanks based only on dry rock that were spectacular. But these were tanks that were setup by skilled aquarists; IMO, setting up one's first reef tank with only dry rock is not the way to go.

 

[firemountain]

Live rock brings in the good and the bad. Mine had some Aptasia that exposed on it. It didn't show up until 2 months later. I have successfully treated to date with Aptasia-X.

Then one day a bristle worm popped up...cool! Now I look for him when I get the chance. Good learning experience. I believe someone who doesn't get live rock is missing out.

 

[Pomacanthus1]

Without the incredible diversity of colors and critters that come with using lots of live rock, it seems like it'd be hard to call an aquarium a proper 'reef' aquarium. Instead it's just a tank for fish and corals and whatever invertebrates you choose to ad to it. Yes live rock comes with the good and the bad, but in my experience the good far outweighs having to deal with a few aptasias and gorilla crabs. That said, it is possible to get some pretty wild stuff hitchhiking in on the rock.

I know that when I set up my next tank, I'll be using a ton of live rock. I do worry about how the quality compares to what was available 10 years ago, though. So far I have not been all that impressed with what I've seen in the area LFS, so hopefully Premium Aquatics and Live Aquaria are still known for their good rock these days.