coral skeleton, live rock or DIY rock?

[punziracing]

Hello All, I am not new to the hobby but have been out of it for over 15yrs. I am ready to dive back in head first with a ton more patience this time. I am on a tight budget so will be mostly DYI ing as much as possible, I have a 37 gallon cube for the tank and a 40B for the sump which will house a skimmer, return pump and large refugium in that order. I have a few large pieces of dead coral skeletons (see below) I would like to use it for a base rock but do not know if this is a good idea or not, it seems like it might be too dense. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Also there seems to be a lot of DYI base rock being used these days, some of it looks better then LR as far as surface area goes, any negatives to using this portland based rock?

Thank you for any advice the community can provide, I would like to say I absolutely love this forum and look forward to starting my own personal build thread in the near future.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Personally, I wouldn't use cleaned coral skeletons for anything in an aquarium, they probably have better use as decoration. If you still want them in the tank, I would place them towards the top so you can keep them cleaned out and not a haven for algae and other gunk.

 

[LadyMac]

I agree, algae would easily get a foothold especially on the first.

I’m in love with the se one piece though. How large is it?

Base rock can be found cheap, and from what I’ve seen, it’s not too complicated to make your own using cement and reef sand.

 

[mcarroll]

All dead media is about equal in function (and disfunction).

It's usable as long as you're prepared for it.

To me, it seems like most people don't know what live rock was actually for when they decide to go the other way, so they end up using dead media as if it was live.

 

[punziracing]

Personally, I wouldn't use cleaned coral skeletons for anything in an aquarium, they probably have better use as decoration. If you still want them in the tank, I would place them towards the top so you can keep them cleaned out and not a haven for algae and other gunk.

I definitely do not want to use if it will act as an undesirable algae magnet, I just thought it would act as dry rock and help with the bio filtration. Maybe cover in coralline. I will most likely stick to dry rock if there are chances this could attract algae, thanks for your input.

 

[punziracing]

All dead media is about equal in function (and disfunction).

It's usable as long as you're prepared for it.

To me, it seems like most people don't know what live rock was actually for when they decide to go the other way, so they end up using dead media as if it was live.

That is kind of what I thought, dead is dead when it comes to rock or corals. I am still in planning phase and thought if I was cycling my dry rock I could through this in as added filtration for a quarantine or frag tank down the road, thanks for reply

 

[punziracing]

All dead media is about equal in function (and disfunction).

It's usable as long as you're prepared for it.

To me, it seems like most people don't know what live rock was actually for when they decide to go the other way, so they end up using dead media as if it was live.

I agree, algae would easily get a foothold especially on the first.

I’m in love with the se one piece though. How large is it?

Base rock can be found cheap, and from what I’ve seen, it’s not too complicated to make your own using cement and reef sand.

Both pieces are about 14” x 8”.