Live Rock VS Dry Rock: Which is BETTER for Your Reef Tank?

What's going on, reefers? Blaine here. In today's video, we're going to be talking about an age-old question coming from the reefing hobby, live rock or dry rock. Let's get rocking. [music] [music] So, when setting up a saltwater aquarium, one of the first big choices is going to be your rock. Live rock gives you an established biological head start. Dry rock gives you a clean slate, lower cost, and more control. Both work, but they create a very different starting point inside of a reef tank. So, what is live rock? Live rock is rock already colonized by marine life and beneficial bacteria. The rock itself is not alive. The name refers to this beneficial bacteria, coraline algae, copapods, [music] amphipods, worms, sponges, and other organisms that are living inside of it, creating that lifelike style and lielike name. Some of the pros coming from live rock are the following. Biological filtration. Its porous structure provides huge surface area for bacteria that process ammonia into nitrite and nitrate. Properly cured live rock can significantly speed up biological establishment. Although you should still confirm the tank is processing ammonia and nitrite before adding livestock. This can really speed up the process of your biological filtration. Biodiversity. Live rock can introduce microauna, microorganisms that help process organics, [music] provide natural food, and help create a more complex ecosystem within your reef tank on day one. Mature appearance. Coraline algae and other encrusting life can make the aquarium look established much sooner than dry rock can. Some of the cons from live rock hitchhikers. The same biodiversity that makes live rock attractive can also bring issues like aasia, nuisance algae, predatory crabs, problematic worms, mantis shrimp, and other unwanted organisms. Cost and handling. Live rock is usually much more expensive and needs careful transport. Die-off can create ammonia. So, how the rock was stored, shipped, and cured truly matters in this situation. To maintain that beneficial bacteria and all those microorganisms, the rock needs to stay wet. So, sometimes we look at shipments of this live rock coming from all kinds of different areas and the rock [music] is just being shipped with wet newspaper or things like that. Technically, it's best if the rock can be shipped completely submerged in water. [music] For us, when we ship out our Maricultured Rubble, we're making sure that it's within one of the coral frag bags. It's going to be in water the entire time during shipping. So that way, you don't see any of that excess die off when it arrives at your house. One of the major cons people typically talk about with live rock is the fact you can't actually aquacape with this rock. Typically, it needs to stay wet during this entire process of you adding it into the system. So trying to get that perfect [music] NSA style aquacape is going to be much more difficult with live rock in comparison to dry rock that you can work with outside of the tank before it needs to be added in with water. So let's get into what dry rock is. Dry rock contains no established marine life when purchased. It may be natural limestone based rock or manufactured from reef safe calcium carbonate. This is a starting point with no mature bacteria, no microauna, no coraline algae, and that's kind of a disadvantage or can be a benefit in the long run for your goals with your reef tank. Let's talk about the pros of dry rock. Control. Dry rock dramatically reduces the chance of you bringing in those unwanted [music] pests into your reef tank inside that rock. It does not make the aquarium permanently pestfree, but what it can do is it can allow you to start off on a better foot when you're getting ready to start cycling [music] your tank. Aquacaping. We talked about this with the live rock. With the dry rock, you can cut it, break it, drill it, glue it, and rearrange it in any way, shape, or form to benefit how you're trying to aquascape this system. [music] that makes it ideal for setting up arches, caves, overhangs, and these more modern open structures that people are shooting for in their reef tank. Having the ability to aquacape ultimately allows you to decide what your reef tank is going to look like near the end. Cost and storage. Dry rock is generally less expensive and can be stored indefinitely until the build is ready as long as it's in a safe environment. Now, let's talk about some of the cons of dry rock. You're starting from zero. Dry rock must be seated and cycled before livestock can [music] be added. So, bottled bacteria, live sand, established media, or other pieces of live rock can help get this cycle started. But patience is still going to be required. It's funny in this idea though that we mention utilizing some live rock to kickstart your dry rock. But again, this is just something you can utilize to help establish that biological beneficial bacteria. less biodiversity. Copapods, amphipods, sponges, and all these other things are going to be slowly introduced into your tank over [music] time rather than being kickstarted with a live rock addition. The possibility of phosphate releases. Some dry rock, especially older dry rock that's, you know, been around for quite some time, may release phosphate after submersion. So pre-oaking and testing can help catch those issues before it ultimately reaches the display. After looking at all the forums and all the questions we typically get in our retail store or through customer service, we kind of nailed down five different questions that we're going to go over in today's video in regards to live [music] rock versus dry rock. So, how long until dry rock becomes live? That depends on what you mean by live. Beneficial bacteria can colonize dry rock fairly quickly during the cycling. So it can become biologically active fairly early. But developing the biodiversity, coraline, bofilm, and mature appearance associated with established live rock takes months and continues evolving well beyond the initial cycle. Does dry rock make the ugly stage worse? Dry rock systems commonly go through datoms, algae, bacterial films, and other nuisance algae growth while they're maturing. With lots of open surface area and little established biological competition, the early stages can feel a little bit more pronounced and [music] more difficult for dry rock tanks. Now, this is not the case for every single system, but it's important to remember it's not guaranteed to be your worst tank. But patience, stable nutrients, and gradual biodiversity buildup is [music] going to be especially important in the long run. Can a little live rock seed a lot of dry rock? The ultimate answer is yes. There's no magic ratio, but bacteria and other organisms can gradually spread from established live rock onto surrounding dry rock. Using mostly dry rock with a smaller amount of carefully selected live rock is a popular middle ground. Just remember that adding that live rock can also reintroduce the possibility of hitchhikers and that risk. One of the ultimate questions is which one is better? If you choose live rock, if you value faster biological establishment, [music] greater biodiversity, and a more natural start, maybe live rock is for you. If you choose dry rock, you could value lower cost, easier aquacaping, and a greater control over [music] what's entering your tank, all while giving the tank more time to mature. So, what would we choose? For us, it's going to be a hybrid situation. For many modern reef builds, we like dry rock as a foundation with biodiversity added intentionally. If we're looking at one of Kevin's aquacapes that we've added in to one of our custom installs, we typically like to add in maracultured rubble coming from the top shelf aquatics farm to give it that ultimate boost it needs to really get the cycle going and also add into that biodiversity intentionally. I mentioned this Marco maracultured rubble that we have in the top shelf aquatics farm and this is the perfect example of something you could go ahead and pick up to really kickstart that cycle for a dry rock system. This is something we have in our farm systems [music] and it's really starting to cook up some of that great beneficial bacteria. A hybrid approach can be one of the strongest compromises in the end. Build the structure you want with the dry rock and then deliberately seed it with the quality biological sources. Your rock is more than just decoration. It becomes a habitat for your fish, mounting space for more coral from the top shelf farm, the foundation of your aquascape, and a major biological filter. Whether you choose live rock, dry rock, or both, do not rush this process. Figure out what's going to be best for your tank. Also, give the tank time to cycle and mature. We've talked about the cycling process in older videos, but today we really wanted to focus on live rock versus dry rock. That bright white dry rock you added to your reef tank today over the course of time can become that established live rock we see in many systems on our tank tours. The difference is how you choose to get there. I feel like it's important since now we've opened up the question of live rock versus dry rock. I want to talk about what we have available at TopShelf Aquatics for your reef tanks at home. When it comes to dry rock, we have a multitude of different things, but the current ones we have right now are from Marco. We have the purple and the natural dry rock. And on the other side, we have Carobcy with their purple rock that we all know and love and have utilized in many of the custom installs. Something that you can see too coming from Carobcy is the Dreamscapes kit. This is an awesome kit that we have talked about in the past, but again, I want to mention this is a kit that allows you to basically get all the different pieces of dry rock you need to ultimately create the perfect scape for the size aquarium you have, such as the 15 to 25gallon carob seed dreamscape kit. You get a multitude of different styles of rocks, and you're able to build out that aquacape with a little kit that ultimately allows you to stay within kind of a simple realm of aquacaping. Speaking of aquacaping, I feel we have to mention Kevin's amazing work in today's video. You guys have seen these insane scapes he's created for not only custom installs, but for studio tanks, so many different things in between, also the retail scapes. He has done some amazing work. Now, if you guys wanted to get yourself a scape done by Kevin or have some crazy grand ideas that he can make come to life with a custom aquacape, be sure to head over to the website and check out everything we have available. The live rock we currently have available on the website is just some simple Marco Marultured rubble. Now, this rubble is being actively cooked up here in our topshelf aquatics farm facility. So, you know, it's going to be packed full of beneficial bacteria coming your way when you buy it from our website. Whether it be the dry rock, the live rock rubble, or if you want to put in a custom order for an aquacape, we can make it happen here at TopShelf Aquatics. Again, at the end of the day, there isn't just one answer for this question. Whether it be live rock or dry rock that you like the most, I'd love to hear down in the comments below what you're using in your reef tank. If you guys have hung out with us all the way through on this one, I want to say thank you very much. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell notification so you guys don't miss out on any future uploads. All right.