Anyone Here Start A Tank With Only Dry Rock ?

[Luke.]

if so , what did you do to cure it ?

 

[Jason Bell]

I'm about to get flak, but to each his own. I set up my tank, tossed in the dry rock, power heads return pump, filled with rodi and used 4 heaters, 2 up top and 2 in sump, scooping in salt equal to what the volume was, around 200g. The next morning once salinity was right, I poured 2 bottles of bio-spira in. That was on January 5th, on January 12th I added my skimmer, a bunch of bio blocks in the sump and the next day started adding my corals and such which came from my other two tanks. It worked for me, but not what you should do if you have time.

 

[Luke.]

I'm about to get flak, but to each his own. I set up my tank, tossed in the dry rock, power heads return pump, filled with rodi and used 4 heaters, 2 up top and 2 in sump, scooping in salt equal to what the volume was, around 200g. The next morning once salinity was right, I poured 2 bottles of bio-spira in. That was on January 5th, on January 12th I added my skimmer, a bunch of bio blocks in the sump and the next day started adding my corals and such which came from my other two tanks. It worked for me, but not what you should do if you have time.

Interesting , I was thinking that adding / bottle method has been proven , did you just add it at once and good to go ? (Im patient with this set up) so I’d wait till algae stage is mid way over

 

[Jason Bell]

YesI, only once. 2 bottles based on volume, keep in mind I was moving rocks and media from 2 previous smaller systems.

My friend whom I get most of my coral off of just has the rock in a brute container, some type of bacteria, take your pick, then uses a hang on the back filter with a powerhead at the bottom. I'm guessing that is similar to having live rock in your sump. Give it 6 weeks and there should be some suitable bacteria, however I wouldn't think much algae as there is no light.

 

[Kman]

Using all dry rock works quite well and cuts down on potential pests. If you go that route use a good bio starter like Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter Start XLM or Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter7. They are pretty cheap and work quite well. It is the bio diversity of other organisms that hitch a ride on the rock you are missing out on. Nowadays they have cultures for almost everything so really the lack of bio diversity in the beginning stages isn't as big of an impact as it was years ago. A simple fix would be to introduce some clean culture of macro algae and some pods. It is defiantly cheaper option then liverock. Worse case once the tank is cycled introduce a few pieces of live rock to help kick start things.