"Real Reef Rock" vs dry Fiji rock ?

[George771177]

would love to get some feedback on anyone whom has done a tank build with either of the two aquascape rocks.

"Real Reef Rock" - From live aquaria.

Or

Fiji dry rock from bulkreefsupply.

I am hesitant on the real reef rock because of the extreme cost.

With the Fiji dry rock my main concern is the types of pieces and quality of rock I will get

Anyone with experience or pictures would be highly appreciated. This tank is going to be massive at 210 gallons so I am going to have to purchase a lot of it. Torn!

 

[Crowther]

would love to get some feedback on anyone whom has done a tank build with either of the two aquascape rocks.

"Real Reef Rock" - From live aquaria.

Or

Fiji dry rock from bulkreefsupply.

I am hesitant on the real reef rock because of the extreme cost.

With the Fiji dry rock my main concern is the types of pieces and quality of rock I will get

Anyone with experience or pictures would be highly appreciated. This tank is going to be massive at 210 gallons so I am going to have to purchase a lot of it. Torn!

I just bought 55 lbs. of the reef saver rock from BRS and got some good size pieces along with some smaller ones. See my tank build for pictures. Overall, I'm happy with the assortment they provided. If you have specific sizes that you want, I would suggest calling them in advance to see what they can line up for you. I attempted to do that with a contemporaneous email, but it shipped too quickly.

 

[Pat24601]

I looked seriously into real reef rock and when I was thinking of doing a restart I was probably going to give it a try. But, I didn't do a restart, so I have no first hand knowledge of it.

I did buy reef saver from BRS and was quite happy with it. If you want something specific, I agree with Crowther that I'm sure they would try to accomdate.

I don't feel like either choice is a mistake...or at least isn't a mistake I wouldn't have made too.

 

[DaveK]

If money were no object, I'd say get the real reef rock, but the stuff works out to almost $9 a pound and you'd need about 200 pounds of it. Yikes!

The fuji rock is much more reasonably priced at about $3 a pound.

What I would do would be to order about 180 lbs of the dry rock, set up the tank and cycle it using the usual deli shrimp method. It may be helpful to use some live sand, just enough to seed the system.

Then once it's cycled order about 20 lbs of the real reef rock or similar live rock and pit it on top of what you already have, This is to seed the rock with a lot of different life. You might also want to get some GARF grunge and add that to the system too. You may see a mini cycle from all this going in.

Once your through that second cycle your good to go. In time the dry rock will become just as alive as that real reef rock and just as good.

Yes you will spend more time doing it this way. BTW, you are trying to get a very diverse number of species living on the rock, so adding various bacteria supplements do not count here.

 

[Florida Sunshine]

There is nothing like real live rock. I will try to find a thread but it is a really old one where a member cut in half two pieces of rock that had been in his system for years. One of which was live rock and the other dry rock that was "becoming live" You could easily see that only the outer inch or so of the dry rock had any life in it, while the real reef rock had life all the way through.
I understand that it is cost prohibitive, but I would at least get some of the real stuff in there.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

if interested, might check this out

http://www.marcorocks.com/dry-rock/150-pounds-key-largo-rockfree-shipping-in-the-contiguous-us/

 

[George771177]

This is all great feedback. Thank you everyone.
I have a 65 gallon reef that is established and been running for several years now. I was thinking about incorporating the rock from that tank into the new reef.

I have heard a lot of pro BarS reef saver rock.

Anyone out there ever use the Fiji dry rock from BRS?

I helped maintain a huge reef with the real reef rock and it looked beautiful but man is that stuff expensive. I want it to be done right.

Really torn here. The more pictures I can get I think the more it will help with the decision.

 

[Pat24601]

This is all great feedback. Thank you everyone.
I have a 65 gallon reef that is established and been running for several years now. I was thinking about incorporating the rock from that tank into the new reef.

I have heard a lot of pro BarS reef saver rock.

Anyone out there ever use the Fiji dry rock from BRS?

I helped maintain a huge reef with the real reef rock and it looked beautiful but man is that stuff expensive. I want it to be done right.

Really torn here. The more pictures I can get I think the more it will help with the decision.

This isn't much help, but while I haven't used the brs Fiji rock, I did take a close look at it and it was also on my short list to try. I think it would work well, but of course I don't know.

 

[cracker]

I used Marco for base rock. I liked it.