Any thoughts on the best type/sources of dry rock or sustainable live for a new tank?
Rock recommendations
- Thread starter Salty_Breeze
- Start date
I went with dry MarcoRocks Reef Saver and live sand so that I could better control what went in my tank. I chose it over the CaribSea LifeRock because I've heard story after story of people having major phosphate issues with the LifeRock and swearing they'd do it all differently if they could start over. I love the look of the MarcoRocks, and it's so easy to work with. My fish love it too because they can hide out in all the holes.
The downside is the complete lack of microbiome, so you have to build that some other way. Lots of different ways of doing that (bottled bacteria, AF Life Source, live sand, etc.), but none are going to get you the wide variety of components you find in a complete ocean biome. You'll probably eventually get close as you add corals, clean-up crew, etc., but it's a process.
After months of reading, watching videos, starting my sixth(?) tank, and hanging out on forums, I think the only thing I would do differently (and something I'm in the process of doing now) is getting a little real ocean live rock and sand from somewhere like Tampa Bay Saltwater to seed my tank from the very beginning. I'll put the rock in my sump because I don't want to grow whatever algae and photosynthetics come on it, but the sand will go right in my tank.
I've watched days of videos probably, and I think this is the best one I've seen:
The downside is the complete lack of microbiome, so you have to build that some other way. Lots of different ways of doing that (bottled bacteria, AF Life Source, live sand, etc.), but none are going to get you the wide variety of components you find in a complete ocean biome. You'll probably eventually get close as you add corals, clean-up crew, etc., but it's a process.
After months of reading, watching videos, starting my sixth(?) tank, and hanging out on forums, I think the only thing I would do differently (and something I'm in the process of doing now) is getting a little real ocean live rock and sand from somewhere like Tampa Bay Saltwater to seed my tank from the very beginning. I'll put the rock in my sump because I don't want to grow whatever algae and photosynthetics come on it, but the sand will go right in my tank.
I've watched days of videos probably, and I think this is the best one I've seen:
Super helpful, thank you for the advice, I think I will get some TB once they are shipping.
More info on when that will be: https://humble.fish/community/threads/tampa-bay-saltwater-fresh-harvest.12393/post-429538
Kp aquatics has nice rock too. I'll never start with dry rock again.
