Carib Sea Life Rock or Reef Rock 2.1

[chaostactics]

Next place we move live rock is mostly illegal. I had more or less the same batch of liverock for 15 years and will have to start over and want to start with that artificial purple look. I know there are draw backs especially related to bioavailable space for bacteria im not worried about that. 

 

 

 

More worried about longevity of the rock, leaching, cycling etc.

 

 

 

Help me choose

[Brianr24]

I have life rock and real reef rock. Not set up yet so I can’t say much. What I will say is I personally like the look of the life rock much better than the real reaf rock. 

[msummerf]

I got the life rock shapes and absolutely loved it. Haven’t used reef rock but when I made my decision I felt liferock looked better to my eye than the reef rock but I’m sure they are very similar. Life rock also definitely has all sorts of shapes, Tonga, shelf, etc... 

[Clown79]

I've used liferock in all my tanks and love it. 

[banasophia]

13 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I've used liferock in all my tanks and love it. 

Me too! Caribsea Liferock - highly recommend!!!

[Clown79]

1 minute ago, banasophia said:

Me too! Caribsea Liferock - highly recommend!!!

I've mixed it with my liverock when I upgraded to my 25g. I liked it so much that I did my 5g with it, and if I ever do another tank from scratch, its my first choice for dry rock.

[banasophia]

Yes, so one thing I’ve observed in both of my tanks is that, not only does it look nice, but the Caribsea Liferock seems to resist algae growth in my tanks (though not hydroid growth).

 

I’ve actually been allowing algae to grow on my Flipper in my Nuvo 10 to observe this very thing. The Nuvo is 9 months old. Check it out, obviously there is algae in my tank, along with the nutrients to sustain it. I have both decorative macro algae of three types that I intentionally added to the tank, along with the nuisance algae that is growing on the Flipper... despite all that algae on the Flipper, it doesn’t seem to grow on the Liferock.

 

Bubble algae did grow on the Liferock, but it was easily brought under control by an Emerald Crab from Reefcleaners. And interestingly, I also do not seem to get much coralline growth in either of my tanks.

 

I’d be curious to hear other people’s experiences with Liferock and algae growth... obviously it could just be something specific to my tanks. Or just good luck that the algae hasn’t spread to the rock yet. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brianr24]

Yeah I purchased liferock shapes but I received 3 large pieces. It was kind of hard to make anything work in a 15 g cube. So I ordered reel reaf smaller pieces. I planed on mixing them and coming up with something. But I didn’t like the look nearly as much as liferock. 

I managed to use only the life rock and not mix them. After a little hammer dressing this is what I came up with.

if I had to do over instead of getting the reel reaf I would just get more liferock in smaller pieces 

[burtbollinger]

3 minutes ago, Brianr24 said:

Yeah I purchased liferock shapes but I received 3 large pieces. It was kind of hard to make anything work in a 15 g cube. So I ordered reel reaf smaller pieces. I planed on mixing them and coming up with something. But I didn’t like the look nearly as much as liferock. 

I managed to use only the life rock and not mix them. After a little hammer dressing this is what I came up with.

if I had to do over instead of getting the reel reaf I would just get more liferock in smaller pieces 

looks good

[Mike P]

I use life rock in my tank 

[chaostactics]

Youve given me the most useful feedback ivr gotten across 4 fourms and 1 facebook group with 29k members, thank you @banasophia

 

[msummerf]

Life rock Shapes for the win!

 

[Brianr24]

Nice job 

scape looks good 

[Jeff Hood]

I used life rock in my 20.   It gives that fully mature look right away.  The color did fade and go away over time as the snails and critters ate on the rock.  However corraline algae is now growing all over it with a vengeance.  It did seem to resist algae but not sure if it just hid the little algae that grew that would have been obvious with a stark white rock. Either way it’s a good product. 

      I’d use it again in a heart beat. 

[cvest100]

Highly recommend the CaribSea Life Rock Shapes.  Bought two boxes and was able to get a nice scape that doesn't just look like a pile of rocks, but has some height.