River Rock/holey rock, limestone question

[msmith619]

I live on a creek in Fair Oaks Ranch, TX. There is a large dry, seasonal creek bed than runs across the back of my property. The river bank is solid limestone and the creek bed is full of rock rubble. The creek is under 10-15 feet of running water after heavy rains but dry 8 months out of the year. Is this safe to use as rock rubble for a refugium? Would I be better off with real live rock rubble? Do I need to "cure" the river rock like regular live rock? Has anyone tried this? By the way, the rocks run up to several hundred pound sizes and look really cool when in a ciclid tank. I have friends who collect the holey rock for their fresh water tanks.
Mike

[allan]

I had a texas holey rock in my tank and was alerted to flint being broken down into the water column. So I took it out. I had a condy in there that wasn't doing well and I kind of think it had to do with the heavy metals.

As far as would live rock be better or not, I think that answer would be a resounding yes. Live rock much better than curing nonlive rock. Of course you have some die off with the live rock that may be the only negative. I am trying to find some live rock rubble myself for the same reasons, the fuge filtration.

[CoryDude]

I wouldn't recommend using limestone or other types of central texas rock.

I decided to cut costs on my very first reef tank, and used limestone rock and other quartz type rocks. I was never able to get the ph and alk at proper levels, plus I forever had a problem with high silica levels.

If you're looking for live rock rubble, I'd recommend you buy some dry rock from Phenomenal Aquatics, bust it up and then seed it with some cured live rock. Shouldn't cost you more than $2-$3 a pound.

[Mr Cob]

Mike, I have used select limestone holey rock pieces (like one or two pieces in a 120g system) that looked super cool and had tons of holes for my display tank. They do not provide any help on the bio load because they are not porous. U could even use it as base rock to help fill the tank or build up the live rock. But keep in mind you are taking up space that should be filled with benefitial live rock. A few cool pieces is all I would use.

It would be no use in a refugium. You need to fill the refugium with benefitial items like macro alage and live rock.

[LittleReef]

I had the same question about 4 weeks ago. Here is the response I got from a friend of mine.

"I wouldn't but that's up to you. The risk with limestone is that over the ages it can become contaminated with other things. You will have to be the judge of that risk because you're the one looking at the limestone and holding it in your hands.
Most limestone is quite dense. A lot depends on where you get it. There is some limestone near the surface in places like Haiti that is better for a reef aquarium than older limestone in other parts of the world. The limestone near the surface in Florida, for example, is probably younger than the limestone in central Texas. This is what they dig up and dump into the Gulf of Mexico to turn into aquacultured live rock.

It would be okay to use some limestone as base rock to save a few bucks as long as you realize that it is not entirely risk-free. The Earth's crust is constantly in motion and over millions of years (even thousands of years) things get mixed."

He also said "If it's not free, why even take a risk?"


Made sense to me. :)

[msmith619]

Thanks for the quick responses. I think I will just buy that $2-3 live rock from Phenomenal Aquatics and have a go at it with a hammer to make rubble for my refugium.
Mike

[coraline79]

An alternative to that would be lace rock. it looks a lot more like live rock and is very solid, and very porous. some people have it and don't even know it. I have seen pictures of tanks on here where people have aquired rock with a purchase from another reefer and it was lace rock. you can get it at kellers materials for about 10 cents a lb, and it is a great base rock. I have had it successfully in 3 saltwater and 8 freshwater tanks. The only thing i do to it is boil it for about an hour a piece in a large pot.

Just like any other non reef rock you will read things on the net that say that it could leach something into the tank, but you will be hard pressed to find factual documented cases. 99.999% of the time it is our faults when the tanks take a dump!!!

When you are looking at 50-150 lbs of rock at $3 a pound your looking at $150-$450 on rock alone. Get 3 good 15-20 lb pieces of lace for your base and then stack your liverock and you will be very pleased. The lace rock is the same color as liverock as well.

[Big_Pun]

ive been thinking the same thing and found this site let me know what you experienced people think, if this is true or someone trying to make$$$$

http://www.oceanproaquatics.com/shop/texas-holey-rock%C3%82%E2%84%A2-1220-pound-show-rock-ships-free-p-16795.html

[Mr Cob]

ive been thinking the same thing and found this site let me know what you experienced people think, if this is true or someone trying to make$$$$

http://www.oceanproaquatics.com/shop/texas-holey-rock%C3%82%E2%84%A2-1220-pound-show-rock-ships-free-p-16795.html


"I have some problems with some of their comments:

My comments are below in green. Most aqua farms let their man made rock cure for years before selling it as benefitial. These people claim 3 months with no lighting...what a joke.

Our Rock is FULLY CURED and has been culturing in our cycle tanks for upwards of 3 months so inhabit heavy beneficial bacteria and enzymes (3 months is hardly enough time to make this rock benefitial in any way what so ever). No lighting is used on our culture tanks so the rock is being sold as "Base Rock" but has a strong filtration benefit to your system and will color much faster than any other rock available today anyway. (ummm holey rock is anything but porous! Porous is what makes fiji rock so benefitial, holey rock is just holey, but it's super heavy and very dense)
Density is a little more per square inch than normal Fiji but lighter in mass (NO WAY! Holey rock is SUPER HEAVY!!!) because of how porous with holes and caves the rock has thus making it less expensive by mass than even standard Fiji terms. (ummmmm, NO, holey rock will weigh much much more than fiji live rock, these people are full of the stinky stuff)"

[Bill S]

As noted, holey rock - while porous for rock, isn't porous like reef-rock.

[CoryDude]

Also, since the creek only runs when we get a lot of rain, and water runnoff, then there may be a possibility of contaimenants in the rocks from the runoff waters.

Also, isn't live rock composed of mostly dead coral skeletons, so doesn't the calcium provide and extra buffer source for your tank? LMK if I'm wrong on this.