reef building the fundamentals

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

I would or I will on my next setup go with 90% dry real reef rock specific types and seed it with some live rock (aquaculture if its full of life or wild live rock but have to detail inspect the rock)

Reason being
I have in the past tried full system loaded with only wild live rock with the issues of all types of unwanted critters weather fish killers or coral destroyers,...

After that I tried many types of dry rock
Tufa rock,very light land rock but its boulder shape and release of God knows what killing my corals slowly,...
Lava rock,Same issues as Tufa rock with its dark reddish coloration,..
Florida,Lace,Texas holy,etc...so many more types and or named rocks as they all are dense(no bacteria growth space) heavy and unnatural look,...
4 years ago I found Marco rock tried it and seem to somewhat enjoy the rock,seed it with some live rock and voila but as time passed I started missing my old natural look for real live rock and Marco rock started getting heavier and heavier as fast as each shipment arrives to my doors for resale,...didn't like the idea for selling as in the past heavier rock for the hobby so I decided to give up,....Did some more research visited some weird countries and made some new friends to find a decent $ on usable rock for my system.

Live rock comes in from all corners of the world get on a plane or a boat to make the long trip to our LFS,...unfortunately over 80% of the rock life dies during packing and shipping and thought why pay the extras for all that water weight,what if there is a way to do things a little different,maybe we are viewing things through a tunnel maybe there are more ways to see things,...

I remember live rock over 20 years ago use to come in unwashed and full of all types of coraline and dead what was ounce living critters,snails,eels,fish,..etc
Now rocks come in with only few sponges a little to no coraline and some bacteria with few bad hitchhikers,..

Maybe if we find a product that could eliminate some of the unwanted issues with our live rock we could have a better system start-up shaped the way we see reefs are built;from a small piece of calcium ions mixed through thousands of years with corals, fish and other living things to get the shapes we love to place in our systems.

as you could see I love my reef system and love to enjoy it front view not in the back,over or under the canopy

That said I voted #3