Lava Rock in a Reef Tank

[Seaquest]

Hi

I was in Montreal the other day visiting Hagen head office and had some time to spare so I picked up the yellow pages and went out viisting some of there aquarium supply shops. I came across this one shop which I won't mention the name, that has Lava rock in all its display tanks instead of live rock. I would think that lava rock would be high in iron content which would cause an algae problem but to my suprise his tanks and lava rock were covered in coraline algae and the systems looked great, Has any one ever heard of using such rocks in reef displays?. I guess it would be a cheap alternetive to live rock I guess. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Cheers

[stephane]

I have 2x 50 pound big lava rock on my tank since
about 6 years in my tank an i have never experience any algea bloom if you see them you could not see any difference between a real and the lava they are incrusted with all kind of spondge

the only bloom i ever experience is now since i convert my bare bottom reef to DSB I begin to ask my self about the purpose of them I hope it will setup soon because i will turn back to bare bottom

[Canadian Man]

My Big als in the city here have their coral selling tanks full with lava rock. it is something they have just done recently and i cant see any adverse effects. 4 tanks full.

[Jack]

I had a bad experience with lava rock. I though it would look like live rock once covered. It would have looked great had it worked for me. Although my lava rock was not from an aquarium store, I just went out and found some and used that. I had algae problems like you wouldn't belive. It was insaine. Now I'm re-doing my tank. Good thing I only ruined a fish only tank with that lava rock. Word of advice, you are probably taking a risk using it, but if it works, great. Just didn't for me. Now that I have restarted, I am going for a reef tank :D . No way in hell I would use lava rock this time.

[sea gnome]

Hi, I'm with Jack, I too had lava rock and had huge algae problems. It did have nice coraline algae on it though. I have just finished my new tank set up and went with live rock. Hasn't been long enough to find out if I will have the same algae problem or not. Rachel

[StirCrazy]

hey Rachel, hows the tank comming?

Steve

[titus]

Hello,

Lava rock is not suggested due to the potential concentration of harmful elements. Exactly what I guess would depends on the source. It's one of those situations where you may be okay but there's no gurantee. Generally it's not recommended and if you do, you are on your own.

For the fish stores, don't forget that they always clean their tanks. Whenever I go to Big Als their staff are always cleaning and cleaning.