Hey TeeVee, why not look into the price of base rock if it is available in your area. If not J&L sells it for 50lbs for $75 I think. I've used it to do my aquarium and it quickly became covered in coraline algae and populated with pods. It is a cheap safe alternative to LR.

I'm truly amazed ol' Bob hasn't jumped on this one yet ! Teevee, base rock is a good alternative option. But will Tufa not also serve as base rock ? I agree with Jon. It all develops characteristics, both visual and biological, similar to the original live rock from which it was seeded.
Full stocking of live rock is just not a financially viable option for most. Regardless of the time commitment.
The big risk which was mentioned is undesirable "elements" which may be present. I've heard Lava rock can be notorious for that and thus create algae problems but I wouldn't know anything about that... :rolleyes: . If ya' want some lava rock let me know...
Over the years I've gambled on many "cheaper alternatives". Some good, some bad...it might work for one yet be a failure for another. Go with the Tufa rock. If it's bad you'll know eventually... :confused:

base rock is at least ten times the price of tufa. i am going to go with tufa, as i have no heard any bad stories about it, and i think jon's tank is a testimony to success with it. should it ever cause grief, i can pull it out. sure it will be a hassle, but i'll have only lost a few hours wages.

apparently true tufa is lava rock, the red stuff, while the white/yellow stuff i am talking about is not. the white/yellow stuff is apparently calcium carbonate with extra minerals in it, good for plants, which of course means bad for reefs. the idea would be to control water quality and keep calcium high until the rocks are covered in coraline, which would prohibit algae growth. i'll keep everyone posted on how it goes.

Good luck if you decide to go this route, make absolutely sure though that your tufa doesn't have any coloured streaks in it. Even a slight yellow/orange tinted streak will mean trouble. Pick only snow white stuff, and when you get it home it sure wouldn't hurt to soak it for a few days or so and then check the water for iron and phosphates... not to mention fertilizers etc which I guess you can't test for anyway.

For the price of Caribsea base rock, you can have cost savings and assurance that you will avoid the problems with lava or tufa rock. With every shortcut there is a price to be paid later on - maybe you'll get lucky or your tank will be the one that turns out beautifully regardless.

Real rock (and real base rock) has so many aesthetic and functional advantages, many of them mentioned here. If the foundation of your reef tank is rock and sand, then do all you can to approximate nature. Are you going with a glass bead substrate?

I agree AJ, I could sell my base rock back to the LFS as live rock any time now and end up ahead of the game.... well not really ahead but.. you know what I mean.

Wouldn't that make for a boring aquarium/hobby, growing out base rock into live rock to sell back to the LFS's....

substrate is SWC oolitic. where are you guys getting your base rock? cheapest i've seen it is $2.50/lb.

J&L sells it for $75 for 50lbs...

oh right. still $1.50/lb... but that means i could get 150 lbs for $225 and get another 50 lbs of live rock. i'll have to think about it some more.

TeeVee, in my humble opinion you don't even need 50lbs of live rock, as long as you give the tank/rock time to seed. You could do well with 20 LBS of live rock as long as it has good coraline algae growth, get your Ca/alk levels set and bust up (almost powder) some of that coraline algae and it will start to grow quickly.
What really worked for me was to dose a bit of the SeaChem Calcium one week and dose Kent the other week.... The SeaChem is Calcium Gluconate which is labeled as a carbohydrate but Kent says it is a sugar... isn't a carbohydrate a complex sugar?? anyway, the coraline aglae really seemed to take off in my tank and most of my base rock has coraline algae on it. I also have a few nice growths of calcerous red algae....