dtdream

Hi JiaEn, thanks for the drawing. And blabber away! Thank you for sharing your experience.

Hi JiaEn, yes agreed again. Either great minds things alike, or fools seldom.. never mind, lol. But yea, I do think with the gyre, if appropriately sized, adjusted and positioned, it maybe able to lift a good portion of detritus off the sand bed. I'm looking at the Red Sea Reefwave manual, one of the configurations looks interesting, and could potentially have enough flow to lift most detritus off the whole sand bed, subject to the rockscape, as you mentioned also.

Hi Validator, yes my Jebao SLW-30 wavemakers are wifi versions. Lowest setting is 30% unfortunately. Have you tried using the big rubber thing to adjust the direction of your wavemaker? You could maybe turn it to face one the walls of the tank so as to reduce the strength of the flow. I'm looking at your tank thread as well (looks nice esp with the fishes!), could you potentially direct the flow to your rockwork (assuming it is stable), and let the rocks diffuse the flow?

Here’s the pair of Onyx Clowns I got from Coral Farm on Sunday. Feeding once a day on pellets, but they’re not eating much, only a few pellets each frustratingly. However, I think they should be ok because saw them feeding on the copepods whose population seemed to have increased quite a bit. Here’s a short vid of copepods that are just hanging out on the back of my tank. It’s quite obvious that they’re everywhere now. I’m getting convinced until proven otherwise, that a combination of the refugium and the healthy copepods population is keeping unwanted algae at bay. Keeping my fingers crossed. copepods.mp4 Ball of Chaeto is turning into a big ball. If all goes well on my non-skimmer plan, may expand the refugium into the bigger compartment of the sump when the bio load is higher. Other small change was that I moved the smaller glass container of Miracle Mud into the other compartment as it was getting in the way of me pulling in and out the filter holder/sock holder. For reduction of noise, am using 2 filter cups with floss instead of filter socks. With filter socks there is relatively more water trickling sounds. Plus, I think it’s just easier to throw away floss than having to wash socks. Nitrates are less than 0.5 and phosphates less than 0.03. There's was a very very slight pinkish and bluish tint respectively on the Salifert test kits. Think the values are a little low and very surprised at the drop in nitrates, was at about 25 the about 1-2 weeks ago. Think I will lower the photoperiod of the Chaeto, and I have the happy problem of being able to add more fish?! Did something very silly which I only realized only 2 weeks later; placed the Jebao SLW-30 wavemaker incorrectly. This is how I placed it. This is how it should have been placed. Middle section INSIDE water. And here I was thinking why the magnet is not strong and grumbling to myself what a crappy product it is. It’s not a crappy product. It was my crappy judgment in placing. After the correct placement, it’s quiet now and happy with it. @JiaEnthought about the detritus question, and did some additional reading/watching. Basically, its about trying to prevent detritus from ever settling in the first place as much as possible. And one of the solutions which may help is Gyres. See 0:40 and 5:20 section of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy348tkzMWI&t=2s It’s not a 100% foolproof solution, but after watching the video I thought having gyres might make good sense, so went and got one to try. My gyre of choice is the Red Sea Reefwave 25. Got that because quite a few reviews online and even Red Sea’s own video said that it is dead silent. I’ve no first-hand comparison to other gyres, but again I think it’s slightly misleading to say that it is silent. It does make a little vibration noise, especially on the wave mode at higher intensities. During the revving up and down in wave mode, it does make a revving noise which I can hear. But again, caveat here is that I’m quite sensitive to noise, so your mileage may vary. But just thinking to myself, do fish fuss over noise in the tank? Try putting your ear against the glass of your own tank. I think even the “quietest” tank will have some vibration noise for sure, more so with wavemakers. If you snorkel or drive, you’ll find that in nature you don’t hear any of the vibration noises you hear in our tanks. It’s been suggested that whales and dolphins beach themselves due to the sound of boats, etc. Maybe the so called harder to keep fishes like Achilles Tang, etc. are also sensitive to noise, and are easily stressed by the vibration noise in our tanks too? Food for thought, lol. But coming back to point, the Reefwave 25 does push quite a bit of water. Also, while it took me quite a while to figure out how to use the app, the scheduling function on the app is quite good once I figured it out. Especially if you’re a noise sensitive person like me. You can program constant flow for periods where you need it to be quiet, and other noisier wave functions when you’re usually not there. I find that at constant flow setting, the noise is quite quiet at lower settings (at and below 40%). Other less noise sensitive folks will also find the scheduling feature in the app useful too, because you can configure the water flow to be in sync with your light schedule, etc. And... it did seem to lift detritus. So all in all, 8/10. 1 point off for not being as silent as I wished, 1 point off for time spent figuring out how to use app. But last point might be due to my own low intelligence, please don’t take umbrage at my rating.

Ah ok I see what you mean now, and yes I would agree that many of the corals that we keep in our tanks are not as close to the sand bed as in nature. I've dived a little too in the past, and am very lucky to have been able to do a dive at the Great Barrier Reef once, albeit just a tiny part, but there was sand there for sure. And yea agreed as well, as long as it looks right for us, I think that's the most important, its a hobby after all, enjoy it! Thanks and will try to update and share the experience that I think I would like to know if I was another person reading this. On that note, guys, Coral Farm is definitively open to visitors. Read a thread somewhere with some people saying its closed to public, its not. The aunty and a couple of foreign workers there were friendly enough too. But as we are currently in an ongoing pandemic, as per the safe entry signs posted there, please keep it to 2 visitors per family. It's a pretty big place and there is a large selection of fishes. Not only the range of fishes but also the depth. eg. 1 type of fish at least 10-20pcs to choose from, some gobies I think they even had 40-50 different pcs of the same species to choose from. They even had what I estimate to be 2m+ long sharks?! I think they had 5 of those, lol. But anyway, what I appreciated most about the place was that they had smaller specimens of fishes which you normally see larger specimens of in our regular LFS. eg. I saw some small six line wrasses (1-1.5"), powder blue/brown (2"). For me I prefer to buy smaller specimens so I can enjoy them growing up/out in my tank. As for corals, didn't pay too much attention because I wasn't looking for corals, but in any case don't think there were too many. It's a bit of a hike, and since there is possibility that I was just lucky today, it maybe a good idea to call in advance before heading down if you are looking for something specific. Though for me I just wanted to jalan jalan so just swung by without calling. Was looking for a pair of true perculas but ended up going for a pair of Onyx because the black colour intensity and pattern on one of them was very appealing to me. I'll try to post pics in the next couple of days once they settle down. Hope they will be ok. Again, please try to keep it to 2 visitors per family out of consideration to their safe entry policy. When I typed in google maps, there were 2 "coral farm" results, but the one that got me where I needed to be is: 60 Lim Chu Kang Lane 6F, Singapore 718843. Enjoy!

Yea I know what you mean. I think its just part of reef keeping though; we try to reduce and manage where we can, but can only do so up to a point where it gets in the way of how we want to enjoy our tank. If I happen to find a way to manage better this detritus issue, will share. I'm sure you will too, I read your tank thread and it looks good! Sorry for your loss due to a chilling failure, but I'm sure you'll manage well! Not sure which natural reef you're referring to, but I think most reefs have sand? at least those which I have seen... My sand bed is fairly shallow at 1-2cm, and I tried to nudge the rocks into the sand bed snugly when placing them, so hopefully its good enough. Don't plan on keeping sand sleeping wrasses too, but thanks for the reminder! thanks! hope it helped you!

Hey JiaEn! Around the rocks should be okay. For the middle and top sections, I think the wavemakers should be strong enough to blow the detritus away. I'll probably get different and/or more wave makers as we go along, but the ones I'm looking at are pretty expensive so I'll wait till its time to add more demanding corals. As for the area around the rocks at the bottom section where the rocks rests on the sand, I've left enough space between the rocks such that it should be fairly straightforward to clean around it during water changes. I bought a regular gravel cleaner(Grex) that allows me to adjust the water flow, so that the suction is just strong enough for the sand to be lifted, cleaned of detritus and dropped back down. Actually this is a good question because I didn't mention in my initial post that I'm using the Caribsea Special Grade sand for my set up, and the choice of this sand was deliberate. Initially I thought of getting the Oolite which looks nice, but the grain size of 0.25-1mm is potentially too fine to distinguish the sand and detritus while cleaning. Plus, your flow can't be too strong if the sand is too fine as it may blow around too much. The Special Grade sand is a little larger and has a relatively more consistent range of grain size, 1-2mm, so the adjustment of the water flow when cleaning will be easier too. Other sands like Natural Reef, the grain size range is too wide, 3-5.5mm, and should result in relatively more detritus accumulating and tougher maintenance. https://caribsea.com/aquarium/ As for detritus beneath the rocks, you got me there! I'm stumped on that one to be honest. I'm hoping that since I put sand first then rocks later (even though some recommend the other way around), the rocks will be sitting on the sand snugly, and not too much detritus will get beneath the rocks. Hopefully bacteria and pods get to to those which slip through, but I realize that most likely not all even if so. I think the only way to get detritus as low as possible is a bare-bottom tank with powerful flow all around and a Clarisea filter. But I did read elsewhere too that some detritus is not all that bad, though I think that its most likely my confirmation bias at work, lol! Anyway, I like the look of sand with some larger base rocks, so I guess I have to live with some detritus unfortunately?

It's been many years since I decommissioned my first 3ft tank due to my university studies. Now, with a half approval from my wife, I got a new Red Sea Reefer 350. Half approval because I did not get approval to have the tank at home, but I get to put it in my office. 100% happy with the half approval. Decided to start a tank thread to document both the progress and regression, of my new tank. Plus would like to share some tips and lessons I’ve learnt along the way which I wished I knew earlier. It took about 7 weeks from placing an order to delivery of the Reefer 350. Would like to take this opportunity to thank Francis from Red Sea. He went beyond the extra mile to ensure that information on my order was relayed as quick and accurate as possible. If any others who also bought/own Red Sea tanks and have questions or issues, just reach out to him and he’ll be sure to help you out. Initially, I thought I could just get live rock like in the past, but only after I bought the tank, I found out live rock is now ridiculously expensive as compared to before. Apparently, it’s under CITES now, so importing is expensive and a chore. In fact, even if you want to pay for it, it’s not that readily available too. A couple places have cultured live rock, but did I mention that it’s very expensive? Anyway, decided that since I had to wait for the delivery of my new tank, to go with the option of dry rocks instead. It’s not all bad as starting with dry rock has the advantage of being able to dry scape, which is much easier to do than scaping in water. Once scaping is done, if you have to wait for your tank like I had to, you can also cycle the rocks in advance. This would help shorten the time needed before adding fishes when the tank is finally here. As far as I’m aware, for dry rock in Singapore, there is the Marco, Stax, DD Aquascape, Aquaroche, Caribsea Life Rock and Caribsea Moani. You can google to roughly see how they look like or go around to the different LFS to look, which is what I did, and here are my here are my brief observations. Marco: Very white, but they had some nice shapes, especially shelf shapes if you buy loose. If you want to go for a “clean” look when starting, would be a good choice. Stax: Basically Marco but cut into slices. Cutting it into slices makes it easier to get creative and build interesting structures. Personally, I like a more natural look so not my cup of tea. But I can see why some people will like it. Probably a good idea to consider combining it with some Marco. DD Aquascape: Similar to Marco. Aquaroche: Had some big structures if you’re lazy to aquascape too much. Made of Ceramic. Caribsea Life Rock: Dyed purple. Have the option of some nice shape (eg. arches) for easy scaping. Good choice if you want to have a purple look right at the start without waiting for Coralline algae to grow over. Caribsea Moani: More yellowish as compared to Marco. Not dyed purple like Life Rock, but still had little purple specks. I went with this option as it looked more “natural” to me. Bought a box which came in random shapes, so your mileage may vary in terms of shape of rocks. After dry scaping, bought a tub to start cycling. Here’s a pic of the tub with the rocks: Used a 3 stage RO/DI unit I got on Carousell for water, 2 used Jebao Wavemakers I got from a reefer here for circulation, Dr Tim’s ammonia to cycle and a Seneye Reef to monitor. I ended up buying some Salifert test kits as well as the Seneye Reef was not what I expected, and not in a good way. For reefers who are thinking about the Seneye, I would say that it is absolutely not necessary or even recommended. The set up was not intuitive and instructions were not very clear. After set up, it was kind of clunky to use. You need a computer connected to the internet to access the data real time. I knew this before buying and thought the offline data upload feature was a fair compromise, but for me it always takes a few tries before I was able to uploading the offline data successfully. I hope to change my mind on it after I use it for PAR readings in the future. For starter bacteria, being the kiasu (aka Defensive Pessimism, learned this term from the new GCT book) Singaporean, I used Microbacter 7 for the first 3 weeks, and added Fritz Zyme 9 on the 4th week. In fact, I also added Dr Tim’s One and Only just in case after adding the cycled rocks to the tank when it arrived as well. Cycle was done by about the 6th week (Ammonia at or very close to 0 and Nitrate way above 50) in the tub, just a few days before the tank arrived. One of the issues I faced during the cycling process was low PH levels after just the first couple days. I guess being in an enclosed Aircon office contributed to this issue. The first couple solutions I tried was to open the windows overnight and increased the flow of the wavemakers. It did help and PH stabilized at around 7.6 for a day or two. But by the 2nd or 3rd week, PH went down to as low as 7.2 (in fact 6.9-7.0 on the Seneye but I found out that was inaccurate. Bought a separate PH meter to reconfirm). Tested KH and it was at about 6.5 with a Salifert test kit. Even though I received some advice to not bother too much about KH and PH levels during cycling, I psychologically couldn’t stand PH being so low, so I added a little Kalkwasser and boosted KH to about 10. If adding Kalkwasser, ensure add a little only at a time, as a little goes a long way. About a teaspoon boosted my KH from 6.5 to 10 for the tub pictured above. After that, PH rose and ranged from 7.6 to 8.0 depending on the time of day (lower during day in enclosed room with Aircon, and higher at night when windows opened). After about the 7 weeks, tank finally arrived. LFS faced some communication with the distributor, but Francis from Red Sea sorted it out promptly. The installers took about 45mins to set up the tank, and were pretty efficient in doing so considering that my floor was quite uneven. They did a good job levelling the tank. But a small issue was that they installed the overflow and inner downpipe incorrectly, by accident I’m sure, resulting in loud overflow water noises which couldn’t be adjusted. But the installer came down again to fix it literally in about 30mins after I called him, so kudos to him for that. The glass used by Red Sea is super clear and the set up looks clean and neat. It’s a well thought out system that most beginner to intermediate, and I dare say some advanced reefers, should be happy with. The only suggestion I would make to Red Sea is to have an option for a full-length sump without the side cabinet. I would probably still choose the stock option which I have, but I can see why some people would prefer a larger sump. But in any case, very happy with the purchase. Here’s some pictures of the tank with rocks. Does not look amazing for sure, but satisfied with the result because I think it looks natural and should be a good foundation for the future. I’m not the biggest fan of the branching complicated scapes I see a lot nowadays. But hey, different strokes for different folks. Some tips I learned from others online regarding Rock Scaping: 1. For those who are using Epoxy, you can use small pieces of rocks to cover the Epoxy joint areas. See pic for example below. 2. Try to leave space not only in the front, but also side and back of the tank. This is for easier maintenance in the future, especially cleaning of tank. Also, with more space around the rocks, it will help water flow planning and avoiding dead spots. (I plan to scrape the back of my tank too for the clean black background look of the Reefer 350, but I might get lazy so let’s see...) Top view of tank to as example, arrows for space, at least 3cm. 3. Try not to stack the rocks too high unless you really like the look or have a clear reason why, especially if planning to keep corals. Keep the height to about 1/2 to maybe 2/3 the height of the tank, as you want to leave some space for future coral growth. Also helps with flow planning. 4. This one not a tip, but just something I thought of after placing the rocks in the tank. I dry scaped with an overhang/arch (did not epoxy for this part), but decided against overhang/arch as I plan to keep SPS later, and figured IF I’m successful with SPS, it’ll grow into a natural overhang anyway. Another issue I had was with the sound of the return pump. I bought the Sicce Syncra Silent 4.0 thinking it was silent, as it says so in the name. But it is not really silent. There is a low humming sound which is pretty obvious to me. To be fair to Sicce, I have to admit I’m generally more sensitive to noise, plus my tank is in my office and I’m sitting literally only about 1m away from the tank. I even went to IKEA to buy those silicon food mats to put under the pump, which helped a little, but not by much. I think it’s ok if your tank is in the living room or you’re not too bothered by a little noise. But please don’t be mislead by the name of the pump. After some googling and reading, I narrowed my choices of quieter pumps down to the Reef Octopus Varios and Ecotech Vectra. I decided to get the Reef Octopus Varios 4 as from the reviews I read, it seemed a little more reliable. Also, I went down to Reefing Reality to “hear” the pump as they have it operating in one of their tanks. Btw, not going to give details as it is a security issue, the owner of Reefing Reality was extremely kind to accommodate my request to hear the pump. I live pretty far from his shop, but mental note made to try to support him with at least some business in the future. Anyway, just want to have a clear disclaimer that this is my opinion only, but for those of you who are sensitive to noise, the Varios pump is amazing. Its not dead silent, but I think it’s as close to dead silent as you can get for a pump. Was so satisfied with the Varios 4 that I got the Varios 2 for my Chiller pump. Try to support your local LFS, but if you can’t find the version of the Varios you want (I couldn’t find the Varios 2), you can get it direct from David at Reef Octopus. He’s was nice enough to arrange for me to pick it up on short notice too. Below is a pic of Varios 2 and 4 on a couple of silicon mats from Ikea, fairly close to dead silent. After about 3 days with the water running and rocks placed in the tank, I decided to get started on the refugium. I got the Miracle mud as substrate, as I’ve had great success with it in my first tank from years ago. I bought some glass food containers from IKEA to place the Miracle mud in, so that it’s easier to change it out if I need to, and just helps with general ease of maintenance of the refugium in the future. Got the Tunze Eco Chic 8831 for refugium lights, and I like it. Its waterproof so I can place it close to the water, and not have to worry about it getting submerged when I turn off the main return pump during maintenance. Got the chaeto from SAS as I thought their chaeto looked the "cleanest". I also got one pack each of the Algagen Tisbe and Apocylops pods from Fresh n Marine to seed my tank with them, and hopefully since there is no fish when I added them, they can get a small head start in established a small population. I read somewhere that pods eat diatoms, so maybe I can shorten the ugly phase with a pod population? Got a small bottle of zooplankton too thinking I can use it to feed the pods, or at least serve the purpose of ghost feeding a little to keep the nitrifying bacteria going. Pic of chaeto on day 1. Pic of Cheato under Tunze light after about 1 week which is quite surprising considering I have no livestock in the tank right now. I also bought an Ikea Stotta strip light and stuck it on the top of my sump. This is so I have some light when working with the sump besides the purple refugium light. I bought a mounting tool from Shopee so I can mount and remove the lights more easily. Wish the light was brighter though. And for those of you thinking where is the skimmer, please take a deep breath… but I plan NOT to run a skimmer. I ran my first tank without a skimmer for 4 years, and I could keep SPS and LPS without issues, so let’s see. I may add one in the future considering some skimmers in the market nowadays look quite cool, but I hope to not have to get one. So I’m ending here at about a week after setting up the refugium. I plan to go around the LFS’s probably this weekend to get my first fish, most like one or a pair of clowns. If you're reading this, thanks for staying for what I'm realizing is such a long read! Will update again as we go along

I have a almost brand new Sicce Syncra pump, used literally for 1 day before I changed it out. To me the pump is a little noisy, but that's because my tank is in my small office room which is very quiet, and I'm sitting only 1m away from the tank. Brand New Retail is $190, letting go for $150. Condition is essentially brand new. Please see photo. No low ballers please. Thank you.

Hi guys, I’m planning to either get a teco-500 or hailea 500a chiller. But I’m extremely particular about the sound of the pump needed to circulate the water into the chiller. Just for some idea on how particular I am, I initially got a sicce silent 3.5 for my tank’s return pump, but found that it is too noisy. I got a reef octopus varios 4 instead and it’s much better. teco-500 minimum flow rate is 400L/hr hailea 500a recommended flow rate is 2500-5000L/hr While it is interesting that such a different flow rate is required for similarly water volume rated chillers, that is another topic altogether. Can anyone advise what is the quietest pump I can buy for either of the above chillers? Condenser option is out as I do not have the space to do so.

Hey sorry don’t remember, give them a call?

Ah ok, actually most shops can help you order. Just that the lead time is quite uncertain and dependent on the local distributor, who is not that great in my opinion and experience. Red Sea tanks do look nice, and support from Red Sea themselves is fantastic. I ordered a Red Sea tank too, but also still waiting.. hopefully soon!

ah ok thanks!

Hi @Duranx, spotted an ATS here. Looks like waterfall version. May I ask where did you get it?

Happy days. Must have been tempted by the display at Madpetz eh!

congrats! did you end up getting the reefer 170? thats a 2ft one.

I’m assuming you’re looking for new? If so yea I’m pretty sure you are able to. Just go to any Red Sea dealer and ask them to order one for you. But depending on stock availability at the distributor, you may need to wait a month or two if they don’t have stock on hand. Just search Singapore in the link below or google. https://www.redseafish.com/super-store-finder/

Yea I read quite abit too, but from what I read, the more “normal” ph drop is to 7.5 or 7.6, less than that is uncommon. But in any case, my ph level is now back to more normal levels, currently 7.8, so I’ll just have to be patient too. Not too sure on the snails, I read on other US forums, it seems we don’t need that many snails unless the tank is fairly established. A new tank apparently not much to eat. But yea I would agree prob not food, since dying from hunger in only 2 days seems abit too quick haha! Maybe just suay. Did you use only dry rock as well? Apparently most tanks go through the “ugly” phases if using purely dry rock. I’m still contemplating seeding my tank with a little “real” live rock, like maybe a small or medium piece, to introduce more biodiversity. Apparently it can help skip or minimize the ugly phase. But chance of introducing pests like apitasia is also higher.. choices choices!

Following! I'm cycling just rocks right now as my tank is not here. Seems I'm a couple weeks behind you. My pH dropped like a brick too during 1st week cycling. Lowest at 7 on Seneye! But unlike you I couldn't tahan and added a little kalk to buff it up a little to 7.6. This was about a week ago. Yea my Seneye reef doesn't seem to be as accurate as I hoped to too. Wondering if its a faulty slide or not. I bought a separate PH meter and it read higher than the Seneye (eg. Seneye reading 7.2, pH meter read 7.8). But no idea if the meter is accurate also, lol. Your current pH reading of 7.9-8 is on the Seneye? 7 snails seems abit much though. Are you using dry or live rock? Won't the snails have nothing to eat?

Hi Luenny, I just got back into the hobby and was shopping around too Unless have a lot of spare time to go around, most probably its best to find a shop (or a couple) which is closer to you. I visited quite a few places and I won't name the places I was indifferent to, but here are the places I think should be okay. In no particular order: East: Fresh n Marine (staffed by mostly young chaps who are helpful and friendly) DE Aquatic (boss is accommodating and a nice guy) Ah Beng Aquarium (boss initially looks abit fierce behind the mask, but also very nice actually) Iwarna (Didn't really speak to anyone when I was there, but I used to buy quite abit of stuff from them 15 years ago. They still have everything you need for a new set up) West: Suprem5 (I think less equipment to see at the shop but the guys there can advise you on your new set up, their rockscaping service seems pretty cool too if you're lazy to do that yourself) Specialised Aquatics Solutions (Its feels like a very complete one stop shop for marine. Side note for future when you're finally stocking - their livestock looked the healthiest though a little pricier than other places.) North: Seasonal Aquarium Pte Ltd (Ah chek seems very experienced and a friendly guy) Madpetz (Might be good if you're setting up a smaller tank, fair selection of different types of rocks, and they even sell loose sand - other places I saw generally you need to buy a whole bag). Btw most shops offer a little discount if you get more stuff and ask politely Lastly, as other reefers mentioned, you can consider pre-owned tanks to save some money. If you put in abit of work, you can make it look nice and new too. There's a reefer here name subzeroLT and if search for this tank thread you can see how he refurbished an old tank and it looks really nice now!

Hi guys, anybody know which dry rock is better? Marco Rock or DD Aquascape Rock?

Got it thanks! Yeap, at least 1 year away I guess! Tank haven't even arrive, 1-2 months out!

This is helpful, thanks, good to know that dry rock is not an impediment to Coralline. Hmm I did not really think of it that way, but yea I guess it does make some sense. Though I read that certain species of coral like to grow over the coralline algae, and other corals such as SPS can outcompete coralline algae anyway in a healthy system. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/will-frags-encrust-over-algae.453398/ Sorry can give full name of "FM"? Is it the name of a brand? Yea in the past I just ended up dosing a little more. For me personally I think Coralline algae does look nice and also helps with other less desirable algae issues in the long run. Plus I plan to add the more challenging corals such as SPS only when I see Coralline algae growth. Apparently Coralline algae growth is a good indicator for when the tank is ready for more demanding corals. So hope to get some Coralline in any case But yea ok going to back to the main question of dry rocks, it seems others and also you guys are using dry rocks with fair success. Plus I realize there are a ton of additives now, even live copepods that we can add, so will try the dry rocks and see how it does. Thanks for your replies guys!

Hi guys, I've had mixed reef tank before so not totally inexperienced, but that was many years ago and now itchy backside start again. So the challenge I'm facing is the choice of rocks for my new setup. In the past, live rock was the default option as it was relatively cheap and easy to get. But it seems nowadays we are limited to dry rocks or very expensive cultured live rock. Can any senior reefers advise if they have had success with dry rocks? I don't think I'll take the caribsea life rock option as it is apparently synthetic and not great in the long run (slower coralline algae and corals slow to encrust is what I have read), plus I don't really like the fake purplish look. I'm most likely going with the Marco rock option, but I'm worried about bio-diversity. While bottled bacteria can assist in the establishing the nitrifying bacteria, you still don't get the critters, sponges, copepods, etc which I think are essential to a successful reef tank. I think even coralline algae we have to seed in a purely dry rock set up? Can any senior bros advise what they did to enhance the bio-diversity in their tank if they started out with purely dry rock only? Any other advise is also appreciated!