Live rock, is it worth it?

[+Dustin Blevins]

Ok so I'm in the process of figuring out my first tank and one of the big questions I have is about the live rock. I know that it helps out with filtration and everything, but is it that much more important to buy established live rock over buyin dead rock and curing it yourself?

Thanks,

Dustin

Also, if I were to cure it myself would I have any limitations on what I could put in my tank before it is cured?

[+Jakedoza]

There really is no difference except that the rock that is not cured will have to be cured. You may also want to boil it to kill anything that may have been in it since it will be an unknown. You should check the tank condition of the rock you get that is cured. If the tank conditions are undesirable, then you will want to dry and boil (cook) it out and start to re cure it as well.

If I were to do things over from the beginning I would dry and boil everything before putting it in a new tank, but this can be debated. The reason I would do this is because of my experience with buying rock that was established that leeched for almost a year. I fought an algae problem because of this and it made things rather difficult. Again this is my opinion for a new tank owner.

As far as limitations before it was cured.. With a reef/salt setup you want to do things SLOWLY.. It is key to have patience in this hobby. How long it takes to cure the rock will depend on how much you are going to cure and how big the tank is. While curing I will advise NOTHING be put in the tank while the process is going. My tank (135 gal) sat for a month without livestock of any kind while the rock cured. And after that I started with crabs and a couple of weeks later snails. It was 2- 2.5 months total before I even thought about adding fish. This is essential for a healthy stable tank. If you don't have patience, I would seriously consider a different hobby.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy you new tank.

[wa1tx]

I think it depends on who you talk to. I am of the opinion that I would rather buy dead rock and cure it myself so I know there are no unwanted hitchhikers. I have had a bad experience with hitchhikers which is why I hold this opinion.

You should not put anything in the tank until the cycle is complete. There are products out that speed the cycle up considerably but even using the products I would test for a couple days just to be sure.

[RobR]

+ 1 for the dead rock route, this is the way to go if you want to ensure that you don't bring any unwanted pests into your tank. Plus dead rock is usually cheaper that live rock. But like both of the above posters said it takes longer for the tank to cycle and be ready to support livestock.

Also check out This article by Mr. Saltwater tank that talks about the benefits of going dead over live. HTH

[Mike M.]

Sounds like the consensus is for using dead stuff these days. I have had my live rock eight years or so and put the tank together back when dead rock wasn't even being talked about.

All that said, I recently purchased 50lbs of the BRS dead rock. I used it to fashion a rock facade around the frag rack I built for Fat Jack, our little 60 gallon LED experiment tank. I really liked working with the "cheap" rock and used an auger bit to drill holes to mount frags in and such. It allowed me to customize the rock work for the tank in ways that I have not been able to do with "live" rock.

Now, when I put it in the tank...holy mother of algae blooms Batman! It cycled out with the carbon dosing I was doing at the time in about three weeks, but the mat of algae that it propagated was truly unbelieveable. So what you are being instructed about curing it is completely correct and I would urge you to use a good 6-8 weeks to cycle your tank. I would recommend something like microbacter 7 or zeobak and a carbon source to help things along and then you'll probably need a sea hair, emerald crabs, and snails down the road to deal with the algae. I was amazed at what work the emerald crabs did on the hair algae once I put them in the tank. They are great janitors!

[Inland Reef]

This is all sage advice, for sure.

On the flip side; waiting 6-8 weeks with a bare tank can be tough for a lot of people. Especially people new to the hobby that have been doing a bit of research and looking around at all these wonderful tanks. Even though you may "know" it takes a long long time to have a wonderfully build out tank, it doesn't stop people from wanting some instant gratification.

I've gone both the dead rock & live rock route and as with most things in life, there are pro's and con's. It all depends on what you're willing to deal with.

One of the benefits of purchasing live rock & sand is that the cycle time is usually cut down dramatically. One of the down sides is that a lot of people that are getting out of the hobby & selling complete systems or parting out and selling their livestock and LR is that they've really been out of the hobby for a while and not taking care of their tank. Or worse yet, getting out of the hobby because they've had problems (algea, aptasia, flatworms, or some other issue) and no longer want to deal with it. Of course, there are exceptions, but people don't usually just break down pristine tanks. So.... the up side is that you can begin acquiring livestock much quicker. The down side is that you may have to deal with some problems like aptasia, flatworms. Those can be tough issues to deal with.

Going with dead rock and curing/cycling the tank yourself will take a while & you'll have to look at a bare tank for several weeks. But, you'll know that you have a perfect tank right from the begining. But... you have to keep it that way. i.e. make sure that after being patient and putting in all that work to have a clean slate, that you don't introduce problems when acquiring corals attached to rock. You'll need to be methodical about being choosey what you bring in and dipping all rock/corals to remove any pests.

When I recently got back into saltwater, I was fortunate to get some LR, water, & frags from a friend that had a pristine tank. Everything was just fine from the day I set up the tank.

No matter what route you go, try to do your best to be patient & do your research before you act. Your tank will tell you what it likes and doesn't like, you just have to observe.

This is just my bit of experience, so take it as you will. I'm certainly no guru & there are many different experiences and opinions.

Good luck.

-Jason

[Timfish]

For starters here's what Sprung and Delbeck have to say in their discussion of Berlin Systems Vol , Ch 5 of The Reef Aquarium ". . . one can build a healthy reef tank in one day using well-seeded live rock . . . " (They use the terms "seeded", "cycled" and "cured" interchangably, see their discussion in Vol 3.) I for one can attest to it's effectiveness. For over 10 years I've been using cured liverock, live sand and 10 - 20% water from an established tank to start new systems and not seen any ammonia cycle. I want to emphasize to be safe I expect an ammonia cycle and test for it but since I started doing this I haven't seen it happen and can be adding fish and corals within just a few days. I will use cultured liverock interchangably with wild collected and haven't seen a difference except live usually looks better with more nooks and crannies and cultured I've seen doesn't need curing. To cure liverock I put it in a spare tank or barrel with water from an established tank (new wouldn't bother me though) and a small powerhead for water movement for three or four weeks. I also keep scrubbing to a minimum, just what's obviously dead.

Regarding potential pests from my experience few survive shipping (I've found this curious as I'll open a box to find dead brittle/serpent stars,snails and shrimps/crabs but small coral colonies survive on the rock). Fewer still hide all the way through the curing process and make it to a display tank. In over 15 years I've only had to pull two mantis shrimp out of tanks I've worked on. One did require tearing down a 500 gal. but the other was surprisingly easy as it's hiding hole was known and the rock was easily removed and salt dumped in the hole. (It was exciting trying to catch it as it scooted around on the floor .) I think Nelson and Fossa do a good job discussing the potential pests in Vol 1 of their book "The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium". One thing they point out is a species that causes problems in one tank doesn't necessarily cause problems in another.

I've seen some discussion regarding the ethics of using live rock and don't see a problem with it. For one it's a renewable resource and can take only a few years to form and is part of the natural processes on a reef. The second, and this is specifically referred to by Sprung & Delbeck and by Alf Neslon in "Reef Secrets", live rock brings in a great deal more income to these island nations than using it as building material and road base, giving them a significant economic incentive to preserve their reefs.

Edited June 14, 2011 by Timfish