Texas Holey Rock sold as Live Base Rock at LFS in Minnesota

I don't care much for holey rock. It looks like rock from the backyard covered in coralline in my opinion, not reef rock.

Find some fiji or tonga rock, or get in contact with reefcleaners and get some of their dry rock. Or Marco rock.

 

so lots of posts about it not looking good... let's be clear that is an opinion (and one I disagree with) and has nothing to do with its functionality. To the OP question - yes you can use it and it works well.

Whether or not you like how it looks in your tank is important, not whether other posters thinks it looks nice. I missed the natural boat when I started putting corals and fish together that come from different parts of the world and put Koralia power heads in my DT.

I've yet to have a visitor look in my tank and not be impressed - letalone cringe and think "that doesn't look natural".


As far as how fast coralline will cover it... that depends on your tank. Mine is fairly heavily covered as is the plastic and glass in my tank as well. Coralline doesn't care what it grows on as long as it is underwater. If you have good coralline conditions (Ca/Mg), then you will get it. The rock type is irrelevant.

 

The question is will it work. Yes it will. The other question is do you like the way it will look in your tank? If you say yes. Who cares if other people like it. its your tank and your the one that has to be happy with it. If others complain about the way your tank looks they can either buy you the rocks,corals,powerheads,sumps or what ever they dont like about it or be quiet. If every tank looked the same it wouldnt be fun.

 

+1 on this, I think your main question has been answered, yes you can use it. If you like the way it looks go for it. I don't care what others think about my tank, its my tank.

I have a little bit of it on the very bottom of my rock foundation. Someone said in the very beginning that you can get some really Large pieces and that was exactly why I use it, the ones I used were huge and made a extremely stable base for my other rocks.

 

I use it also and actually like the look. There are soo many caves even in the larger solid pieces. My Royal Gramma decided to take up in one of them and when he withdraws part of the way in all you can see is a glowing purple blob.

 

Wow, Touchy Subject, I guess this is a sensitive topic for some, geeezzzz.
Anyway. Yes that texas holey rock will work, just like those similar ancient reef bed rocks I put in my tank worked, only to be removed 6 months later because I didn't like them. Hind sight is 20/20, so I wouldn't use it. But knock yourself out, there's gotta to be a few ugly tanks out there. lol

 

Like a few others I have some big pieces on the bottom that support most of the Fiji.
I agree if it was all Texas rock it would not look like real reef rock. It will cover up with coraline the same as any other rock.
Also there's a lot of holes in it where detritus can build up in there... it can happen on Fiji too but seems like more on Texas rock. If you live near a city I would wait and get some cheap from someone shutting down a tank. I regularly see Fiji for dirt cheap here. Sometimes $1 a pound. You don't need to buy rock from a store. .. to me that's a waste of money. I bought one rock when I started my tank because it had some coraline on it. Every time you buy a coral or rock you are opening up yourself to all kinds of pests so quarantine would be preferred.

 

There's no right or wrong when it comes to personal opionion. It's your tank, and your money.

If you want to take the approach of not trying or caring to make the tank look natural, that's fine. True, you have power heads, pumps, heaters, etc. Great. So let's give up on making it look more natural at the get go, since it's not out in nature and there's a powerhead in the corner. Cool. That's your opinion, and it's not wrong, since it's your tank. Do what you do.

If you want to get past the powerheads and other stuff which is necessary for survival in a glass box (or make an attempt to conceal them) and then use natural reef rock and try to make it look like a reef, great. It's your tank, do so. You may pay more, but when you put a tank that's built with fiji / tonga / other reef rock... I would say one would get more stares than the other. But that's just me. All speculation and opinion.

As for putting stuff in from all around the world, true, it's not natural. Neither is the lionfish in Florida. They're not originally from Florida. They live in the wild, in the ocean, but it's not natural, since they were introduced by accident. Species intermingle all the time, spread daily. But that's not natural I guess?

 

Sounds like I have my question answered, yes you can use it, yes it will act as a biological filter over time, yes it will get covered in coraline, no it wont look exactly like other kinds of base rock. Part 2 to my question, I have 53 pounds of Texas Holey Rock in a cichlid aquarium right now, and it is fairly covered in some pretty alge. When I break down this aqurium and set it up at my new duty station, can I just power wash the rock to remove the alge? Or is there any additional steps that I need to take to reuse this rock in a salt setup?

 

I would say to wash it off and let it sit outside and let the sun dry it out. do this a couple of times and it should be ok to use.