Ok, after a short delay, here we go. This tank was started as a secondary one to grow euphyllia, zoas, leptoseris, and to occasionally house some other frags for short-term periods. I also wanted to use 99.9% dry rock so that I could witness the entire journey (still underway 3 years and 4 months later) to “live”, and document the process along the way. Since this thread is about rock in particular, I will not elaborate on much else - other than to say that this tank hasn’t lost ANY livestock, other than some snails & hermits that had grown old. The first three added residents (yellow watchman goby infant, lysmata shrimp, and obligatory ocellaris clown) are all still living.
July 18, 2018:
I used just over 70lb of Marco dry rock. Predrilled some holes/caves, and supported the structures with fiberglass rods acquired from the big box hardware stores.
Here’s the mostly finished arrangement
Water in the tank. RODI and good old IO. I cycled with some fish food and let it run nearly a month with nothing in it. I placed some more dry rock rubble in the sump to begin a refugium.
The water cleared up in 2-3 days. I took a cup full of water from my main tank sump, and poured it in, along with a nickel-sized piece of chaeto
August 21, 2018. Nearly one month later, a pod explosion occurred. There were hundreds of thousands visible.
Added baby yellow watchman goby.
August 28, 2018. Added controller.
September 26, 2018. I added a zoa frag that I knew to be fairly hardy. The rock was beginning to get tiny spots of algae. Notice how the rock work never changes… I kept my hands completely out of the water. My forearm accidentally contacted it one time when I was adding a filter sock during the pod explosion. I otherwise have used shoulder-length rubber gloves 100% of the time.
October 17, 2018. I added one head of euphyllia, and a leptoseris. I also added another zoa frag. Intentionally moving slow slow slow.
October 29, 2018. I added a 1” long cutting of GSP to a separate rock up front, in order to begin growing it out for an eventual back-glass carpet. I added an ocellaris, and most importantly - I added a fist-sized piece of Fiji live rock. I purposefully chose a piece that looked very different than the dry rock so that it could be easily distinguished in the pics. It was encrusted in algae, sponges, and had a few tiny bristle worms inside of it. It even had a couple of vermetid snails on it. I have no fear of them, and they are part of the checks & balances in the ecosystem, in my opinion. Some dinos appeared all over the rock shortly before I added the live rock piece. I ignored them completely and they were outcompeted to obscurity within a month.
November 16, 2028. I added a lysmata skunk cleaner shrimp. One of my faves since I began the hobby in 1996.
The rock is just beginning to slightly color up. I took a few pics with the lights off along the way.
February 17, 2019. The only thing I’ve done is water changes every 2-3 weeks, and feeding (pellets, mysis). The goby regular hunted pods and “uglies” were minimal.
At this time, the tank temporarily hosted a candy cane frag, and a linckia star.
March 10, 2019. Hosted a blue-eye tang for two months, and added 2-3 more zoa frags.
April 17, 2019. Added a rock flower nem. He is still in this exact same spot today.
June 20, 2019. Placed a birds nest in the tank to see if it liked the water. It didn’t, of course. Immediately put it back in its home. A few patches of hair algae and 2-3 valonia joined the party. I started skimming moderately, and spend a couple minutes weekly removing asterina stars to avoid an explosion of them. Once the tank became more established, I no longer did this. They just needed some competition, which arrived in the form of a few hundred tiny snails in a CUC package.
January 24, 2020. The rock is established at this point. GSP has carpeted the rock to the left, and will soon begin growing up the sides and back of the glass. I trim it anytime is tries to move onto the front glass or the neighboring rock.
March 25, 2020. Lights off. Nice sized worm observed. I forgot to mention that I added a serpent star in mid-2019. He has grown to nearly 10” across now.
May 2020. Rebuilt my water changing station. This is just to reiterate that I’ve only used RODI and IO salt mix to culture the rock. No dosing in this tank. There are no SPS. This is just another effort to keep my hands from contacting the water as much as possible.
May 25, 2020. Small yellow tang becomes full-time resident. He will be moved once he reaches 5” in length. I rescued him from a situation where he was suffering from ich in an overstocked tank. I did the usual nori/selcon/garlic therapy, and the lysmata kept him comfortable. He recovered completely and is now about as well-adjusted as a tang can be.
September 13, 2020.
November 2, 2020.
January 28, 2021.
June 3, 2021. Here’s the back-left side of the rock with lights off. Still not “live”, but quite established.
Zoas are starting to pop up in areas where they weren’t placed…
This front piece has taken on characteristics that move it closer to what I would consider “live”. It’s essentially covered in algae, sponges, snails, worms, stars, dusters, etc. If you stop flow in the tank, the rock keeps moving. I’m getting closer to being ready to move some of it into my display tank.
July 30. The original Euphyllia head had grown to 11 heads, and is currently at 15. Growth rate is increasing.
Snails lay eggs everywhere and the back glass is encrusted.
I’ll continue this post with pics from the last few months… I’m at the image limit. Sorry if it’s loading too slow!
