"Rocky" Reef Tank Sans Coral

[wally]

After 20 years in the hobby I am getting ready to set up my first saltwater tank. It will be in a 55 gallon tank. My question is that I want it to be fish only, but would like to include lots of "live" rock as well but without corals. I have several African Cichlid tanks that have large rock walls which look very cool. I have seen on line several places that sell "dry" argonite rock that is quite inexpensive. Would I be able to get a bunch of that and then "seed" it with some smaller pieces of live rock to get the bacteria started in the "dry" rock. Again I don't want live corals at this point. I plan on having a DSB made with live sand. Any thoughts on this?
Wally

 

[zachary]

To my knowledge what you are planning to do will be fine. Just that the process of seeding the other rock will be a lengthy process. It won't be live rock for some time.

 

[flydan]

Hey,
For base rock I would look for Tufa or Lace rock, both of which are porous and don't displace as much water. If you use something else, make sure it is safe for saltwater and doesn't have any kind of metal ore in it. I have a reef tank that I started in April and I used 50lbs of Tufa and then added 70+lbs of lr on top of that. My base rock is just starting to get coraline algae on it, but not much of the base rock is exposed anyway. (Most of it is buried under the other rock.)
Good luck!
Dan'l