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[JustDavidP]

I have a couple of projects that I’ll be starting in the next few months. I finally decided that my new clam tank will come to life this winter! I’m also building a new, 33”X24”X24” seahorse tank to replace the aging, and plenty scratched 26 gallon bowfront in my family room. With that said, I knew I’d be looking into the acquisition of at least 50 lbs of live rock for aquascaping.

While budgeting my project, I realized that I could save lots of money if I planned appropriately. Instead of setting up the systems with live rock, I decided to start with “dry rock” or what some call “base rock” and let it mature on its own, ultimately becoming “live” by the time I need to use it the two new tanks. In the New England area, you can expect to pay upwards to 10 dollars a pound for live rock. If I were to mail-order, I’d have to cure and care for rock that may have lots of unwanted life on it as well. This option too, is not cheap. Dry rock will cost you a fraction of the cost of live rock.

Another reason the dry rock option seemed enticing to me is that I’ll be using most of this rock for a seahorse display. In that environment, any hydroids, aptasia, or other nuisance hitch hikers could be disastrous. Mantis shrimp, and other aggressive hitch hikers like crabs that made it into my seahorse system would just ruin my day! Seeding, maturing and culturing my own live rock just seems safer for this system.



The dry rock that I used, I bought from “Marco Rocks” (www.marcorocks.com). Marc, who also owns “Awesome Aquariums” (www.awesomeaquariums.com), an aquarium display maintenance service on Cape Cod, MA, obtains his dry rock from Fiji. It is composed of coral reef rubble, washed into the rubble zone, which is then collected, cleaned/dried and shipped. Marc then sorts the rock and has it boxed to order. The rock he receives is extremely porous, and therefore lighter (A single rock, weighing 5 lbs dry, weighs almost 8 lbs after it has been saturated with salt water). It has a very lacy appearance to it and has more “surface space” than any rock I’ve seen for some time. It has all the qualities that I look for when thinking of biological filtration.





You can see from the picture below, that a 50lb box contains quite a few, large pieces of dry rock. This collection is 4’ by 2’! My son is laying next to the lot for comparison. The rocks do need to be rinsed to remove any powdery dust on it that is a result of the pieces bumping into each other during shipping. Otherwise, it is ready to use!





At this time, my new rock will be rinsed, and placed into my 75 gallon sump and refugium. There, with my existing live rock, live sand, macro algae and scores of micro crustaceans, worms and other fuge and sump critters, it should take no time for it to become “live”. I’ll take more pictures along the way and show you how it cures. I’ll also refer back to this thread when I use the rock in my future display tanks.

Here's a picture of a system done with this rock:



Dave