Ineresting live rock vs dry.

[STLJam]

I think it's interesting that I put 10lbs of TBS live rock and 25/30 lbs of caribsea Liferock in my tank and none of the live rock has algae, but the liferock is starting to be covered in it. On left is live, on right is life(dry).

 

[MnFish1]

Agree this makes sense - rock that has anything alive on it (even if bacterial film) - is less likely to grow other stuff.

 

[KrisReef]

Yup. The concept of "Succession Communities" (or something like that) is clearly visible in these situations. When a fire burns a forest to ash the bare mineral soil will support all kinds of weeds that sprout quickly after the rains wet the soil. Then small shrubs, bushes, undocumented weed farms, and eventually trees grow until the a "climax forest community" fills back is with only trees and few weeds. Reefs after hurricanes are live rock boulders and damaged coral frags grow or get overgrown by slime, bacteria, plants, and with time the coral can dominate again if the storms and currents are favorable with time.

 

[bushdoc]

^^^This guy wrote what I wanted to say!
BTW, there are some macro algae on the left, possibly caulerpa, which might grow out of control. I would trim it.

 

[STLJam]

^^^This guy wrote what I wanted to say!
BTW, there are some macro algae on the left, possibly caulerpa, which might grow out of control. I would trim it.

I need to do a water change today and plan on cutting it back.

 

[kevgib67]

This is why I’ve never used anything else but live rock.

 

[MnFish1]

However - having said what I said - if you have bacterial colonization on formerly 'dry' rock, it becomes very similar to 'live rock' in success - for many people this will be considered heresy, But - my tank (in my thread) was nearly entirely dry rock. BUT - at the start I also purchased large colonies that mostly covered the surface of the dry rock. I never had an ugly stage. (the rock with the GSP acting as a bridge between the 2 islands - was 'live rock' from my old tank. otherwise the rest was dry