Should I use live rock or dry rock?

[Fish_Tank_J]

I am setting up a 70 gallon fish and reef tank and wondering of I should use live or dry rock to get started?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Imo dry rock is best. It's cheaper and there is no risk of bad hitchhikers. You can use a small piece of already established live rock to seed the dry rock. I did 40 lbs of dry rock and two small 2 lb pieces of live rock.

 

[Fish_Tank_J]

Thank you.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Thank you.

No problem! Just do some research of where you get your dry rock from. I purchased mine from www.reefcleaners.org and it's been very good to me.

 

[AlexDm]

Dry Rock ! ^ to add on from what crabs said, add some bottles bacteria and your good to go!

 

[carlosceo2175]

I always go with dry rock ,no parasites to worried about ,had a bristleworm that grew to 12” couldn’t catch him so learned my lesson from that .

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Dry or cured! Need to rinse both well, soak in rodi, dry, rinse, scrub, rinse, dry, soak with power heads in salt water. Test for nitrate. If bad, repeat. Dry well before putting in tank?

 

[dutch27]

I've used both, and have been using primarily dry for years now. If I ever start a new tank, I'm going with harvested rock. My tank with the most life and easiest algae control was the one and only one that I started with entirely harvested rock. I find I've always had phosphate problems with dry rock. If you go dry do some reading on acid baths to burn off the outer layer of the rock to try and get rid of phosphates that would leech.

 

[flsalty]

Just giving live rock some love...lol. That's my preference.