What's the sense in buying "Live Rock"

Sometimes certain things occur to me, and I think it's a matter of common sense, but then I wonder if I'm lacking some vital part of information or something.

For instance:

Purchasing Live rock online. When I buy live rock, I go to the LFS and buy some, she pulls it out a tank, puts it in a bag, weighs it, and I go home, drop it in my tank. I saw the rock come out of a tank, so I knowit's "fresh".

But buying rock online, how it is live if it comes dry and then you have to "cure" it? How does the bacteria survive the rock being dry? Isn't the point of having live rock, having rock with live bacteria on it?

Am I missing something? Isn't that "base" rock?

And what's this about live rock being coral pieces? Common sense tells me me that dead coral probably is live rock, it's rock-ish in texture and structure, with the bacteria on it, but why do some people neglect to mention that rock IS live rock? And a few people have told me this. They totally leave the whole rock thing out the equation and just say "it's dead coral pieces".

Again, am I missing something?

 

If you want to pay top $$$$ for it then by all means do it. You can get just standard base rock and it will become "live" after being in your tank. It's just a way to get money out of people that doesn't know better.

 

Oh I get that. I paid a lot of money in rock, before I learned about base rock. which they also sold and neglected to tell me about it. So I started buying that as opposed to the live rock.

How long before base rock becomes live? I'm sure it takes a while for the bacteria to colonize and invade the rock, is the process long? Couple weeks, months?

 

No, but buying precured live rock at your lfs has cons too. It is generally more expensive, it weighs more b/c it still has water in it and many times you will find nuisance algae or unwanted hitchhikers.

My initial setup included 55lbs of pre-cured lr from my lfs. Since then though, I have bought dry, base rock online. (Base rock has several definitions to different people. IMO, base rock is just dry rock. It can be the same as lr (fiji, tonga, atlantic etc) or can be other types of rock such as texas holy rock. Base rock can be a big slab of rock or "uninteresting" rock or just dried fiji rock.

This topic has actually been a big pet peeve of mine. Many people will say I bought "live rock" when they really didn't or only consider live rock, rock with a of macro algae, hitchikers or corals on it. For our purposes, IMO, live rock is any rock that has a large populations of denitrifying bacteria on it. It could look barren and "dead" but as long as it has the bacteria, it's live rock. Live rock you get from online is generally considered pre-cured, but you still most times need to cycle the rock b/c of the die off from shipping. Base rock is just dry rock.

The point of live rock, as previously mentioned, is to have bacteria on it. IMO, the sites that sell "live rock" or "pre-cured" live rock is really just a scam to get you to pay more money. They aren't lying to you or anything, as I'm sure it is pre-cured to an extent, but you are paying a premium for nothing in all essence, as you still need to scrub off the dead or dying organisms and cure it to prevent an ammonia spike in your Dt.

For the large part, the rock we get from out tank is rock collected from coral reefs or rock that has fallen from the reef due to storm damage. It is just old coral skeletons that have compressed over time and formed the rock we see today. If you are referring to dead coral skeletons that used to be used very frequently in the hobby, then yes, they are just dead coral skeletons. But they can be considered live rock too, as long as they have the necessary bacteria. Where do you think tonga branching rock comes from? It's just old coral skeletons.

 

Indeed, Base rock is cheaper, but there are good things about LR too, Hitch hikers, coralline, etc... And indeed base rock will become live rock, just takes a little bit longer.

Which just helps seed the tank faster IMO

 

That's what your cycle is for, at the end of the cycle, sufficient populations of bacteria exist to allow you to safely add livestock. If you had base rock to an established aquarium, it will probably take a few weeks to become fully colonized, but it depends on how old you tank is and how much rock you have in there already, also the size of the bioload. You can add small amounts of base rock with no problem, the more rock you already have, the more you can safely add without cycling it outside of the tank.

 

Ahhh. This is the answer I was looking for. You pretty much nailed it for me. Buying rock that I have to ship, and then scrub, and soak for a month is the most impractical thing I can possibly do. I dont have the space, time, resources for that in NY. So it's never been a draw for me.

As for the rock being deal coral, I always thought it was actual rock from under the sea. Confusing.

 

yeah but hold on.....now I'm by far not an expert but my question to you is this. Even if you buy somthing online that encounters dieoff in the shipping process....isnt buying this and curing it yourself, faster than just buying base rock and waiting months and months for it to come live?

 

base rock can build a bacterial load in 4 to 6 weeks, faster if you seed it a few pounds of "live" rock

 

rock from under the sea is dead coral.

Coral reefs are formed when SPS and LPS (small polyp stony and large polyp stony) corals die and new corals/coraline algae grows on top and dies and the cycle continues making the reef(rocks) larger over time. SPS and LPS are called stony corals because they are the reef builders.