I would like to get som
I used rocks from a limestone quarry here. cost was $20 per ton. they just let me have a couple hundred pounds free. LOL
Lucky you! I wish I was that lucky. When I bought my 125 gallon tank, it came with approximately 80 lbs of live rock, which was far short of what I wanted. I bought another 60 lbs of reef saver base rock and put it on top of the live rock. When I bought my 40 gallon breeder tank, I stocked it entirely with reef saver base rock. Now that it's matured, you can't tell which rock is the old, and which rock is the new... even in the 40B that had NO live rock added to it.
It can also be accomplished with live sand. I started my 40 gallon tank with nothing but 60 lbs of (new) Fiji Pink live sand, and 40 lbs of reef saver dry rock. Filled it with water and let it cycle. It didn't take long, as there was no die off to deal with. Slowly stocked it, and never added even a pebble of live rock. The coralline algae must have been present in the sand, because the rocks reddened up... and I used no additives.
Agreed. Live rock will have a diversity of organisms that can be beneficial to the life of the tank. On the other hand, live rock can also introduce nuisance critters that are not so welcome in a closed environment. If you wan rock that's pest free, you use dry rock. If you want the beauty of mature rock and all the goodies that come with it, you add live rock. It's all a matter of preference. I was simply stating that if you want to make your own live rock, you can do so by using live sand. It's the bacteria for natural filtration that's most important, and live sand has it. It will migrate into the rock just as bacteria from live rock does. Either way works...
I was told about this, and it works. Put live rock in a tub with really high salinity, the critters in the rock will all come out, and you can remove anything you don't want. You will have to be right there and ready, after just a minute or so they all go back into the rock to hide.
That is correct. Of course, this only works on critters that are mobile, not those that are stationary. Aiptasia and nuisance algae can't be removed by this method. I have used coral dip to do the same thing. It's always interesting to see what kind of hitchhikers are on a new live rock, and often it's a surprise of the pleasant kind. You just have to be there to pick out what you don't want in your tank. I have very seldom had to remove any unwanted critters...