Starting a reef from dryrock.

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

starting a reef with pest free is doable but that will need your full power over purchasing new live stock..
1st dry rock like http://www.caco3reef or there are few online selling dry rock,then you need to seed it and again lots of product out there for seeding,the 2 methods I like and used in my system is seeding with dead raw washed fresh shrimp dropped into the system until bacteria start to form..2nd (my choice) finding someone with good quality live rock to buy or trade to have the full spectrum of good bacteria.
Removing pests from your existing reef by filters is really not that good..depending on what you mean by pests in your present system,if you are talking about pests residing in your live rock then cooking method will do best.if you have diseased fish then quarantine them and medicate accordingly.
I am sure more folks will chime in with other methods as these are the ones come to mind at the moment.

[jostafew]

I started my reef with about 95% dry rock (BRS Reef Save Rock to be exact) and sand, then seeded with about 3lbs of choice live rock from the LFS. After adding the little bit of LR I cycled by dropping some cooked shrimp in there to decompose and feed the bacteria populations. Fish food will work too, just anything to decompose and feed the bacteria. Once I was confident the cycle was complete I added a fish and a cleaner shrimp and slowly built of the bioload over the many months to come.

[Enigma]

What pests are you specifically worried about transferring over in the filter media?

I only use dry rock now. I use a variety of bacterial products: Microbacter7 and Stability are the two I have on hand right now.