Live rock or dry

[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.

[MaxwellSilver]

Dry rock if you can wait 4-6 months.

[Reef Pilot]

Are you talking about if you have no rock at all and a brand new tank? In that case, I would buy 30% live rock, and the rest dry rock, specifically Marco rock. I just bought a 50 lb box of dry Marco rock last week, for a new tank that I am setting up. But I already have an existing tank with live rock, so will mix in live rock with the dry rock.

With new live rock you run the risk of bringing unwanted pests. And you may still have to cure and cook it, to be sure it is "clean" before adding to your tank.

I have my new Marco rock in a tank mixed together with some live rock from my existing tank. There was no ammonia or nitrite at all, so it is already fully cured, after less than a week. I do have nitrates, but not sure how much of that is coming cycled through from the new rock, as my live rock came from a tank that already had high nitrates.

[toxic111]

I agree with a mix of live & dry. I am upgrading to a 120 from a 130, and will be putting my 40lbs of live in with around 80lbs of dry marco rock. Make sue if you go dry to find porus rock, one bunch if dry I looked at were not, and would be hard for bacteria to colonize.

[toytech]

If you go with mostly dry rock you can glue and epoxy it together alot easier to make some wicked aquascapeing , then just add some live rock to seed it and your done.

[kien]

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]

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]

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.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4035/4583267132_52b1d73c11_o.jpg

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

http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1341/5075735295_3e40ec369b_o.jpg

[Delphinus]

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.

[sumpfinfishe]

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!