observations of an old salt

[Snoopdog]

Been a long time since I read that article, I wish I had that old magazine now. I could be having a memory glitch there. I do recall reading that they were little ugly brown crabs. I think I misspelled it, there is a family of crabs known as Xanthidae, may have been one of its sub-species.

No worry, it sounded interesting and when I came up with nothing on Google I was a bit let down

 

[Sump Crab]

The original poster was simply pointing out that there is more than one way to skin a cat. And to the OP and many of us it seems that this method has gotten lost as a viable solution to reef keeping.

Exactly

 

[tvan]

I just had a sad thought, I wonder how many tons of beautiful live rock have ended up in a land fill over the last 30 years.

 

[Yevoc]

The reading of this thread and poking around found this gem...
tbsaltwater.com/liverock/index.html

Click on the video

You can view some pictures of the back-breaking aquaculturing process, or better yet, take a look at the movie that documents the entire process (in either broadband or dialup versions in Windows Media Player format). For a more in-depth history of the aquaculturing process,

Just make sure you have boardband lol. Dial up supported.

 

[Sump Crab]

The reading of this thread and poking around found this gem...
tbsaltwater.com/liverock/index.html

Click on the video


Just make sure you have boardband lol. Dial up supported.

i think the guys at TBS may have the coolest job in the world!

 

[hotdrop]

I just had a sad thought, I wonder how many tons of beautiful live rock have ended up in a land fill over the last 30 years.

Mine I bough from a local tearing down but I had so much aptasia i just tosssed it after I realized how much of a pain it is to deal with. I’m sure There are some many similar incidents

 

[C. Eymann]

Been in the hobby almost 23 years now, I have setup 9 reef aquariums of my own and helped/maintained countless others for people, always started with real live rock with great success, maybe a pest here and there but otherwise nothing disastrous.


Im now in the process of building personal reef #10, started with mostly man made /mined dry rock because of price, convenience and accessibility.


Fighting dinoflagellates at the moment, never had to in any of my previous live rock started tanks.


If I could reset, Id pony up for some real live rock/ make the two hour drive to pickup some mariculture rock from tampa bay saltwater.

100% agree with the original poster.

 

[Snoopdog]

Been in the hobby almost 23 years now, I have setup 9 reef aquariums of my own and helped/maintained countless others for people, always started with real live rock with great success, maybe a pest here and there but otherwise nothing disastrous.


Im now in the process of building personal reef #10, started with mostly man made /mined dry rock because of price, convenience and accessibility.


Fighting dinoflagellates at the moment, never had to in any of my previous live rock started tanks.


If I could reset, Id pony up for some real live rock/ make the two hour drive to pickup some mariculture rock from tampa bay saltwater.

100% agree with the original poster.

Fighting the exact same thing right now from a tank I picked up local. That guy had done completely dead rock. I am slowly adding live rock to the tank now.

 

[Clownfish_Boy]

Fighting the exact same thing right now from a tank I picked up local. That guy had done completely dead rock. I am slowly adding live rock to the tank now.

If it's not made of live rock, a reef does no good as it does not have the necessary bacteria established in it for the breaking down of ammonia and nitrate. You may as well just have a plastic reef like I have in my fish-only !

 

[Snoopdog]

If it's not made of live rock, a reef does no good as it does not have the necessary bacteria established in it for the breaking down of ammonia and nitrate. You may as well just have a plastic reef like I have in my fish-only !

I agree, that is why I am adding live rock.

 

[NashobaTek]

I remember back when live rock, crushed coral substrate and dead coral skeletons with under gravel filters was the only way to go.
I have a 125 right now that was started 8 months ago with dead rock, live sand. I am fighting algae, cyano. I will let it work it's self out other than removing the algae as much as I can.

I am planning on another tank once I get moved and it's going to be started with live rock, live sand and the biological additions that ipsf has. I would rather deal with a few " pests" in the beginning than fight with the cyano, GHA, dinos, etc. I can add the live rock to the tank with out sand and watch it for a few weeks and get the pests out.
I prefer to have a more natural self sustainable tank.

 

[Snoopdog]

For those with this type of sterile, problematic rock I wonder if there is a fix for it? What about adding live rock to a refugium and sump together, a good amount would be enough to see an entire tank?

 

[Sallstrom]

Why not use some of each? When I started at my work there were a couple of reef tanks with live rock. That was more then 10 years ago. Each time we've started up a new tank after that we've taken a couple of old rocks and the rest new dry rock. In Sweden dry rock is a lot cheaper We also use as much "old water" as possible when starting new tanks.

It has worked out well for us so far. Nowadays I can't see the differens between the the old live rock and dry rocks that's been in tanks for years. So we kind of still benefit from the first live rocks we got I think.

 

[Snoopdog]

Why not use some of each? When I started at my work there were a couple of reef tanks with live rock. That was more then 10 years ago. Each time we've started up a new tank after that we've taken a couple of old rocks and the rest new dry rock. In Sweden dry rock is a lot cheaper We also use as much "old water" as possible when starting new tanks.

It has worked out well for us so far. Nowadays I can't see the differens between the the old live rock and dry rocks that's been in tanks for years. So we kind of still benefit from the first live rocks we got I think.

Well that is what I am currently doing. We are going to trek out again today after work in search of a different place with live rock, probably still from Florida though.

 

[Clownfish_Boy]

I remember back when live rock, crushed coral substrate and dead coral skeletons with under gravel filters was the only way to go.

Wow ! That was ages ago ! Even before my time, I believe. But I had a FOWLR with an UG ! filter; drove the nitrates through the roof. Couldn't even think of putting any inverts in there....... I ended up vacuuming all the substrate and pulling that UG filter out ! Then I put a skimmer on the tank..... and had more or less a Berlin setup from then on. This was back when the big trickle filters were popular; then after people began to realize that those big bio-filters drove up the nitrate, they pulled out the media and switched to Berlin setups.

 

[CindyKz]

Why not use some of each?

This has worked well for me.

 

[Snoopdog]

This has worked well for me.

If you would guess how long it takes to start seeing the dead rock produce some life, how long?

 

[NashobaTek]

Wow ! That was ages ago ! Even before my time, I believe. But I had a FOWLR with an UG ! filter; drove the nitrates through the roof. Couldn't even think of putting any inverts in there....... I ended up vacuuming all the substrate and pulling that UG filter out ! Then I put a skimmer on the tank..... and had more or less a Berlin setup from then on. This was back when the big trickle filters were popular; then after people began to realize that those big bio-filters drove up the nitrate, they pulled out the media and switched to Berlin setups.

Yep, I think it was late 70's , but I had a thriving aquarium with star fish and orbic batfish. That was also when you used damsels to start the tank.
Some things have improved a lot but I still believe that live rock is the way to go.

 

[CindyKz]

If you would guess how long it takes to start seeing the dead rock produce some life, how long?

Good question. In my limited (3 tanks set up over 4 years) the dry rock never gets as lively as the original live rock. I have live rock that is still covered with sponges and tunicates after a couple of years, the dry rock never gets quite that way but it does grow coralline pretty quickly (within a couple months I think), feather dusters and so on in say 6 months? And I have seen very little algae. Just a little manageable cyano and hair algae.

 

[CindyKz]

Here are pictures of rock in my 3 year old biocube. You can see the sponges and tunicates still on the LR. The dry rock has coralline (and some cyano lol) but none of the good stuff.