Live rock or dry

kien · #1 01-31-2012, 05:14 PM

I'm a huge fan of live rock. I love all the critters that you can find on live rock. I can sit in front of my tank and totally ignore my fish and corals while looking at various organisms. Sponges, tunicates, dusters, worms, anemones, macro algaes etc.

I find nuisances fairly easy to deal with. If you spot them, just smother them with epoxy for a week or so, then peel off the epoxy to expose a nice clean surface. I've done this for aiptasia, GSP, xenia, ugly brown polyps, etc.

Aquattro · #2 01-31-2012, 05:17 PM

I'm with Kien on this. Liverock, IMO, is the single most important aspect of a successful reef. Sure, you can get around it with dry, but it's going to be easier, and I think a nicer tank with all live. It contains biodiversity you're just not going to get from dry, or even a 70/30 mix of dry/live. Yes, it's expensive, but to me, it's worth it.

kien · #3 01-31-2012, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aquattro

IMO, is the single most important aspect of a successful reef..

Word! I have several starfish, Red Reef and Blue Linckia that have been doing well for a couple of years now. One of my Blue Linckia broke off arms and spawned baby linckia starfish that are still thriving today which I attribute to the biodiversity on my live rock.

Please, no jokes about his appendage.. he's sensitive about it.

sumpfinfishe · #4 01-31-2012, 05:46 PM

Imo as others have stated in this thread live rock is the best choice, i had a great reeftank
in the past that for 12yrs it was very stable and i know the liverock from fiji,tonga,and vanuatu helped in a huge way. Three weeks ago i just setup a new reef in a 33long with
60lbs of various lr and i wouldnt have done it any other way!

Delphinus · #5 01-31-2012, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seriak

What would you guys buy if you were starting over? I remember Tony saying that he might have gone the live rock route had he done things differently. What about the rest of you.

Using live rock from the get-go is way nicer for sure. I don't think I would go the route of using used rock or dry rock again, at least not to the extent that I did. A mixture is probably OK but make sure the scales are tipped in favour of more live.