Can you light dead coral on fire?

[Tired]

Gorgeous tank, and I'm glad it's gone well for you, but sometimes it doesn't. You can find plenty of stories of people using lava rock (though more often in freshwater) and having things die from it. Volcanoes aren't exactly pure.

 

[KrisReef]

I wish I would have come up with the idea of picking up a rock and charging $5 a lb. to say it's reef safer than one you can pick up off the ground yourself. 100% of my live rock is black lava rock sourced from a landscape supply company. After 5 years, I have no regrets.

Looks like your hard work paid off!

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

Gorgeous tank, and I'm glad it's gone well for you, but sometimes it doesn't. You can find plenty of stories of people using lava rock (though more often in freshwater) and having things die from it. Volcanoes aren't exactly pure.

I read a lot of advice deterring the use of lava rock before I tried this experiment. It's been a few years, but I looked and looked and could not find a single credible post that said lava rock was detrimental to their tank. I did find a few that said the ICP test had a high or low element and someone attributed it to lava rock. It's certainly possible, but was hardly conclusive. Even if it does elevate iron or some other element, coral seem to adapt to it just fine. I have yet to see a single post that said adding a lava rock caused a tank crash.

I've built 3 tanks over the years using lava rock, all of them successful.

It's certainly possible that a lava rock may have some kind of toxin that can damage a reef tank. You can also get a rock from a fish store that can crash your tank and maybe yourself with palytoxin if it used to have palys growing on it.