Would a combination of live and base rock work?

[CW4111]

I have 40 pounds of live sand and 12 pounds of live rock in my 30 gallon tank. Would it be okay to add 30 lbs of this calcium based rock http://www.hirocks.com/ as an inexpensive way to build up my rock structure, or should I use 100% live rock?

[ratboy]

Greg and I cultured some of the very same rock and ended up with some great looking rock! I still have quite a bit of it in my tank and it is covered w/. sponges, small featherdusters and coraline. Buy the higher quality rock if you do go with hirocks they tried to get us to take a bunch of smaller baseball sized pieces when we bought 2000#. The larger pieces have great holes and textures. Its a bit more dense than fiji rock but the price is still unbeatable for base rock.
-Erik

[CW4111]

Thanks for the reply I just wanted to be sure this decision wasn't going to come back to haunt me down the road (I'm just breaking in to the salt-water aquarium hobby)

I was planning on getting the bigger rock that comes 30 lbs for $45 and then stacking my branch rock on top of it

[JimD]

Sounds like a good plan, good luck and welcome to MAAST!

[MikeP]

Porosity is what you are looking for in base rock in my opinion. A larger surface area for bacteria and sessile organisms to cover. I've used tufa, regular old texas limestone and 'reef bones' which is coral rock sold by Caribsea I think? The texas limestone got some cover but never looked nearly as good as the tufa and the reefbones are indistinguishable now after a year from well established 3 year old live rock.

Be careful with some things such as lava rock, lattice rock etc - they can have high amounts of ferro-silicic compounds and these can leach into the water column fueling algae blooms.

[GaryP]

A friend found some big tufa boulders in SA. I think he got them at one of the plastic supply shops. He carved them up and got a few pieces of LR to seed it. Its really easy to work with, not much harder than chalk. It has the same, or better porosity as LR.

Gary

[prof]

I have used 'holy rock'/texas limestone and dried out live rock, commonly sold as 'reef bones'. Both make great base rock. The dried live rock will come back to life over time and look as good as any live rock. Limestone colors up nicely but will I think it looks better as a base rock.

I would recommend culturing or curing any dry rock in a seperate tank or bucket before adding it to your fish tank.

[CW4111]

tufa boulders... I'll look in to these. Being able to sculpt the rocks would definetly be a plus.

[georgeortiz]

I went ahead and bought a small portion of base rock to seed my "dead" reef bones and hi rocks. To be honest both responded well but, I really preferred the reef bones to the Hirock. It was just better looking rock in my opinion. All my white rock have purple coraline algae on them. Good Luck! Just be patient it doesn't happen over night.