There’s a plethora of choices that comes with setting up a new marine aquarium; these days the seemingly simple task of adding rock provides no break in the daunting decision making process. Boat, plane, aquacultured, maricultured, man-made, hybrid, ceramic… all prefixes to the word rock describing our options. Which is best? Why isn’t this preference consistent among aquarists? The great debate rages on. The truth is, both live rock and dry rock can lead to stunning aquariums.
Live Rock
Utilizing live rock in aquaria has been one of the key factors attributed to keeping a modern reef aquarium. The myriad of beneficial bacteria keeps the nitrogen cycle intact, and has the added benefit of introducing: detritivores, invertebrates, sponges, tunicates, coralline algae, desirable macro algae, corals, and more. The copious amount of life is a surefire way to jumpstart your aquarium.
Maricultured live rock teeming with life. Credit: Ocean Life Direct, LLC
So, what’s not to love about live rock? Cost, quality, and invasive pests are the main complaints. Live rock in my area varies from $8-12 per pound. That adds up very quickly especially if building a sizeable aquarium. Quality of live rock is of the utmost importance when finding your source. History shows us there are two common ways to import ocean collected live rock, first being via boat (hence ‘boat rock’), the second by plane. Rock shipped by plane can be to your favorite retailer within 48 hours of being removed from the ocean, resulting in very little die off. As you can imagine, boxes of wet rock are heavy which leads to expensive freight, driving the cost up. ‘Boat rock’ takes weeks to get to the US resulting in lots of die off, but saves on freight. This rock is still good for beneficial bacteria introduction, although most other life forms will be lost after shipping.
Maricultured live rock. Credit: KP Aquatics
Removing rock from natural reefs has become illegal in many countries, and rightfully so. Fragging large coral colonies on a reef for aquarium import is one thing, frags grow back quickly in the wild, but rock does not. This is what spawned mariculture live rock. Some companies plant dry rock out on a leased patches of ocean allowing creatures to colonize it over several years. Since some of this rock is being grown right here in the US the price for quality rock right out of the ocean is kept reasonable.… More:
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