So here's the deal. I'm settled in my new apartment and will hopefully be starting my 55g reef tank in the next week or so. obviously, I've been trying to decide about what goes first. The live rock. I've read TONS of threads, both here and in other forums, articles and books, all about live rock. There are obviously pluses and minuses about every choice, but I guess I just am curious what people think.

1) Should I get cured or uncured rock? and why do you think so?

2) I like the idea of aqua-cultured rock...seems very environmental friendly and it makes me just the teensy bit guilty that an actual reef in the ocean is getting torn up to go in my aquarium otherwise. I'm not opposed to it...but the "fake" rock seems kinda cool. What do you think?

3) Is there a certain type of live rock that you really like? why?



I've thought about all this a lot and I know what i'm leaning towards, but I just would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Thanks for your time helping a noob!

I just picked up some Marco dry rock. Looks awesome. Wish I had a whole tank of it. You have a lot of options, you can get all live rock. all dry rock. all live uncured or cured. or a mixture of all. The cool thing about live rock is the hitch hikers and its already seeded with the good nitrifying bacteria.

Clearly there's no right or wrong answer, but one additional consideration you might want to make is which option you can most easily access. For me, with a small tank, I always want to see the rocks I'm getting and pick particular shapes, so I've never been comfortable ordering online. The LFS's around me only have cured live rock, so that makes the decision easy for me.

I got all the rock for my tank from bulkreefsupply.com and got their "eco rox" which is uncured base rock. They say it's harvested off the beaches and not the ocean, I believe it's the same method/place that Marco rock comes from.

I had poor service from Marco, he went MIA when I was trying to work with him to get rocks for my tank.

IMO the best method is the dry base rock like the stuff from BRS or Marco Rock, and try to find a piece of LR from local hobbyists selling some to seed your stuff with bacteria, pods, worms, etc. This way you can look for established LR to seed your tank, and you can inspect it to be sure there's no unwanted hitch hikers like Majano or Aiptasia.

1. Curing is cycling. Cured rock will have a minimal or no cycle, which is good. Uncured rock should only be chosen if it has a lot of hitchhikers (i.e. fresh live rock), otherwise you will have to do a normal cycle. If there are hitchhikers that would die in a normal cycle (i.e. because of ammonia/nitrite spikes), then soft cycling is very desirable.

2. Aquacultured rock is nice. Some of the best sources for high quality aquacultured rock are found in Florida.

3. My favorite rock was Totoka (part of Fiji) rock since it was entirely made of dead SPS colonies, meaning it was highly porous. When you buy rock, you want to get more surface area (=more places for nitrifying/denitrifying bacteria to grow), yet you can only buy rock based on weight. So, less dense rock is both beneficial and less costly. As I mentioned before, Florida rock from somewhere like sealifeinc.net is one of the best in terms of hitchhiker diversity.

I was in a similar dilemma myself. I went to the LFS and picked up 10lbs of their generic cured live rock and had some success with it. It wasnt until i picked up 15lbs of cured Fiji live rock, from a local private dealer, that my tank really took off.

I had more hitchhikers on the LFS rock then i did when i bought it from the local guy. And by 'more' i mean I had somewhere in the vicinity of 12+ bristleworms (i managed to get all of them out but two sneaky ones) and about a dozen aiptasias. The fiji rock i got came with no visible worms but had 3-4 aiptasias and it even had a star fish and couple snails.

The tanks been sitting for couple weeks now and the fiji rock is packed with various diatoms and coloured coralline where the old rock (which is about 2 weeks older) still is struggling to get stuff to grow on it (aside from some small spots of algae).

My hermit crabs and snails seem to spend 90% of their time on the fiji rock so i really would suggest it over the default stuff the LFS has.

Regards,

I did about 60/40 dry (BRS) / cured live rock (LFS) Esp with a bigger tank you can save a ton of $$ going with some dry rock. Keep in mind it will take longer to build up the good bacteria, and about 6 months for it to blend in with the coraline, etc.

I <3 base rock.
No pests. Usually interesting shapes. much cheaper.

Infact, sometimes I purposely kill my LR and make it into base rock before using it in an upgrade.
Take (usually pest-infested) live rock, put it in a 1 part bleach 10 part RODI water solution for 24 hours with some power heads. Take them out, let them completely dry out. Rinse with fresh RO/DI water. and re-use.

A couple of points to made.

First, 'cured' live rock is simply rock you get at your LFS store that has been adopted to the biology of the tank it's in. Most stores have a ton of this rock, and a couple fish in the tank, if at all. This means the rock has minimal biological filtration capability because it doesn't have much bacteria in it. However, you are less likely to get a sudden die off when it's moved to another tank. It's a tad faster in terms of cycling than dry rock, but more likely to be full of aiptasia and other nuisances.

My advice if money is tight is to use cheaper base or aquacultured rock, and put smaller pieces of premium or Fiji rock on top to get the diversity.

IMO Live rock would be the best biological filtration you can get. The flip side is the cost, unwanted hitchhikers (aiptasia, mantis shrimps, red flatworms etc..) and if you go uncured.. the smell.

I would grab a bunch of dried eco rock from bulkreefsupply and then purchase some live rock to "seed" the dried rock.

This way you save money and eventually the dried rock will become live rock.

As for cured or uncured. All live rock will have some die off when you transport it to from the LFS to your tank. No matter what there will be some sort of cycle.

Uncured smells really bad... so if you dont mind using that to cycle the tank you'll save a few dollars there as well.

If you worry about unwanted hitchhikers you can soak the rock in a higher salinity level, hitchhikers will come out and into the bucket. You can then remove the ones you don't want.

HTH

thanks for all the thoughts! I think right now my plan is to get about 50 lbs of live aquacultured rock from sea life inc, and see how that goes. It seems that there are many different options that have all worked for different people so I figure I'm gonna go with what seems eco-friendly and also exciting for me. And honestly, its not allll that expensive. Even with overnight shipping this rock is gonna be about the same price as my LFS "base" fiji rock. I'll let everyone know how it goes!

I love my BRS eco rocks, and I seeded them with Totoka Weetie is right, Totoka for the win!

First let me say I feel bad that you klilled the bristels.. obviously did not know they were actually good.
The aptasia is a bit of a pain but something many go through.

Now the question at hand: Personally i love the hitchikers. Aptasia/starfish/woms/coral/plants etc That is what makes for a diverse reef. IF you just want some rocks for nitrification so you can have a sterile coral farm .. go cured. If you want to explore what the ocean has to offer in your living room get some good uncured rock and really soft cycle it and see what you can find. Good quality fresh rock will keep you interested for a heck of a long time.
jm.02

nice! I've only had experience with buying live rock once and it was One piece for my 5g. lol...I just bought a cool looking piece of Fiji rock from my LFS and it was pretty awesome. Tons of bristleworms (I didn't remove mine...they are still awesome) and a lot of little brittle stars. But I moved and I'm no where near that shop now so I have to try to find something else. I can do it!

sounds like you've gotten lot so good feedback here.
i got all cured LR from LFS for my current tank.
i'm actually gonna go with base rock from bulk reef supply (BRS) and get a few choice pieces of cured LR from LFS for the next one.
i'm a big fan of seeing what i'm getting. don't really like suprises. so i kind of favor LFS for LR... but gonna try it out this time. little more comfortable with BRS as they have multiple types of dry rock to select from. might be worth checking out?
cheers...