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Allow me to join the chorus. I used this rock when I set up my new 150 gallon system 18 mo ago, and it has been a nightmare. Totally unstable microbiome, cycling between diatom and dino blooms for the 3rd time now

Claude is a world of info, but man is it hard to listen to him talk 😂😂😂

Hope you are not affected by the flooding, Keith. Give us an update, please.

I think you are smart to get rid of the Carribsea life rock. I had a 20 gallon nano running for two years without any algae issues. Then I decided to add some life rock arches. I cured the arches in the sump of another system for a few months and then put them in the nano. I did not remove my existing rock from the nano (so this was not swapping established rock for life rock). I started having algae problems almost immediately thereafter. Your Haitian live rock will serve you better in the display than in the cryptic sump. Good luck!

Was fun watching you guys ❤

I'm going out on a limb. Claude does not seem tired.

Not necessarily the brand, but I've had issue with dry rock from any source in multiple tanks. Still battling in one tank until I can afford to replace it. Your definitely not alone

It doesn't even look nice. I'd now only get live or dead live rock.

When did the cyano start appearing ? I just set up a little nano tank with this stuff.

Dry rock craze was the worst, tank & multiple reboots had all kinds of strange algae. GFO is a pain. I handle phosphate with water changes. Macro algeas have never grown for me, the melted away while hair algeas grew like crazy.

Not a fan of this rock either but other than lack of porosity don't really have algae issues after the initial uglies. I'm using it in a pretty low energy reef tank and it lost all its fake coraline and is taking forever for real coraline to grow over it. No cyano but I feel like this rock creates tons and tons of detritus. It is in a lower flow environment and I did saw many of my rocks to have them fit in but still. I should not need to siphon the detritus as much as I do. Most are siliconed to the glass so there will be no restart but I would avoid this rock as a backbone to a reef but rather consider using it if you wanted to add arches or other cool structures in an existing tank and even then there are other superior options out there. Plus it appears Solomon Islands live rock will be returning!

6 months in, exact same issues.

I've been dealing with the same issue, never even thought of this being the problem. I'm satrting a new 210g tank in a few months, going with dry rock this time. Thanks for the info

That’s a beautiful Acantho you have there Keith!

Those rocks make it so difficult to establish a reef but I was able to tame them. If you're getting rid of them I'll take some :)

Increase all no3 po4 or nutrient high as much as posible, let tank such as a toilet, it will let tank mature in few month (about 2 to 3). After that change all the water and make tank clean again but not too much clean, it will avoid all that cyano dinos problem.

I have heard nothing buy bad for caribsea life rock I have always avoided there stuff and i'm glad I have they seem to be just about close to success but fall short

Dry rock is a hit or miss. I setup my reef with Marco Rock which took a year and a half to fully cycle and stop growing random algae. There’s nothing like good old dry rock…I miss the days of when we can just go to an LFS and pick up live Fiji, Tonga and pukani rock. Hang in there Keith!

Curious do you think soaking the rock in some bleach water will help remove possible issues in the rock? Or do you think that even doing that won’t help due to the lack of veracity of the rock?

I have that same CS life rock and 3 years in there isn't any algae or anything on the rock. It's nice and clean. I had issues, but when I raised my nutrients to NO3: 10-20 and PO4: 0.1 - 0.2 all the cyano disappeared and the herbivores got rid of the algae. It was tough the first couple of years though. Upping nutrients seemed to do the trick for me.

Looking forward to seeing the progression!

Having added a few pieces to my 6 year old reef I've had a similar experience. It allows some nice aquascape options but at the cost of porosity(? not sure if that is the right word to use here). In my opinion. Then again I also used dry Pukani but that is another story as it relates to dry vs live rock. Hope your day is well and good luck with the swap or exchange.

Do you think it is also the bare bottom that you have. When I had two tanks, the one with the bare bottom gave me all sort of problems vs the one with the sand base.

First off, this is not my first rodeo with SW reef tanks and I agree with you regarding Carib Sea Rock . I started a 50 gallon using Carib Sea Rock exclusively with live sand and I had similar issues. I chose Carib Sea for the same reason i.e. interesting shapes. On my current 125 gallon I used DRY natural reef rock and live sand and have experienced none of the issues that plagued the 50 gallon. The only advantage of the Carib Sea rock I found over natural reef rock other than the available shapes was the extreme lack of porosity meant Aiptasia were easier to kill with F/Aiptasia as they couldn't retreat into a deep hole and the paste couldn't drip down through very porous rock.

Love that hammer

Keith, I still think you are looking in the wrong places for your algae issues. It’s akin to someone complaining about having the wrong kind of dirt causing the grass to be too long while no one is mowing it. I’ve said it before, but herbivores like trochus snails, emerald crabs and particularly urchins will clean this right up. As for the cyano, I think you have more organic input than output. Options to fix this include: increasing mechanical filtration like more frequent filter sock changes, implementing a fleece roller, increasing protein skimming. Using activated carbon, GFO/Rowaphos, decreasing feeding volume and water changes will all help curb some of the algae/cyano growth by removing organics. Think of it this way: If you bring home five bags of groceries a week and throw away two per week, eventually your refrigerator is going to be full of rotting food. I truly think you need to be analyzing you export practices and clean-up crew rather than looking at new rock. As proof of concept, my most recent tank was started with dry Marco rock and a few choice pieces of ocean live rock. Within 13 months, the algae growth was under control and the dry rock was colonized with CCA. Dry rock certainly takes longer than live rock to reach balance, but if after 2-3 years you are still battling it, I’d argue you need to be looking at your overall organic input and export practices rather than blaming the rock or the tank. If you are set on swapping the rock out, I say go ahead and do it, but I completely expect it’s not going to solve the problem at hand.

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That rock is pure garbage. I started my current tank with that almost 2 years ago. Removed it and created my own scape and still dealing with the aftermath. Never again.

Very interesting. I've battled the same issues with my tank over the last 3 years (also using Life Rock), couldn't figure out the culprit.

A algae turf scrubber will get rid of all those diatoms helped me setup my 800 gallon with all dry rock

I had a rough 2 years with this same rock. The tank only stabilized when i removed half of it and replaced it with live ocean rock. I'm upgrading from my 120 to a 200 in a few months and plan to replace the remainder with live rock! 2 years of grief could have been avoided if i had just used live rock like my last tank!

I think it just needs to be covered with corals

I'm always amazed (though I shouldn't be) by how much 'success' comes down to rock and sand choices. My first Reef was started with dry-rock and dry-sand, and I had nothing but issue after issue for the first two years. I solved it by dark-culturing the rock for several months (I temporarily shut down the display), and introducing live-sand. I started a tank upgrade this past winter and my second Reef is underway, this time with well established rock where I opted for bare-bottom. Once again, it's been nothing but issue after issue. I'm once again debating a temporary shut-down to re-culture the rock after numerous waves of odd and aggressive algae's, and I'm almost certainly going to introduce live-sand for the ecological stability. I doubt I will ever opt for anything except well-cultured rock and live sand moving forward. Nothing else has lead to success (for me). While every other option has been a struggle.

I never had any issue with Redsea dry rocks.

When I take rock from the farm to the display I snag a couple urchins to eat away the ugly phase of algae.

I had cyano, algae and other problems, but once I ditched the fake rock and all my problems went away overnight. I recommend live Australian branch rock.

Was going to go with some of this rock. Glad I haven’t got my new tank set up yet this stuff is expensive and if it isn’t working I would be livid. I don’t believe it is you. None of this stuff has a proven track record but you do. You know what you are doing and what should be happening at this point. Years is a long time to be sitting there patiently waiting.

I thought u changed out these rocks a while back? I don't think it's u,, cos I have the same rock w/the same prob last 6 yrs. I recall these rocks were very heavy dry, prob from lack of porosity.as u mentioned.

I guess this kind of rock can only work with a real sandbed to compensate the lack of surface area this rock tends to have.

Keith went from simple reefing to something that is plaguing our hobby today “overthinking everything”. It’s a box with saltwater. Cyanobacteria is part of the ocean, part of life itself. You can never get rid of it completely. Algae is part of the ecosystem. Seriously, suck it out and move on with your life. Time to revisit Reef Therapy episode where Jake and Mark talked about going medieval on algae and cleaning your tank. This is what happens when you lose enthusiasm for this hobby, everything becomes a chore.

Yep I had the same issue with this rock. It doesn't grow coralline very well either...Nothing but trouble. Went with the KP Aquatics rock after watching your building series.

Dry rock worked very well for me. It’s hard but it worked.

Dry rock. One of the worst gimmicks in the hobby.

Life rRock is non porous cement essentially. That said I've had zero algae, cyano, dinos for the 3 years I've used it. I run 90%+ SPS, so I doubt it's the rock, likely all sorts of stuff contributing, but the rock is certainly something that's also in the tank. Life Rock is definitely a bad choice with no sand, there probably isn't enough surface area in that configuration, good luck.

First! I’ve used the Caribsea live sand, but honestly I can’t tell you it worked any different than dry sand. As for rock, I’ve only started tanks with Marco rock, and though it took a really long time it did eventually settle into something. I’m starting a new tank on dry Marco rock but as it exits the initial nitrogen cycling I am adding established rock from my other tanks, and I am hoping to see a lot less algae issues. Do you think there will be any issues pulling that rock out of darkness and suddenly having it exposed to light? Like a bacteria switch?

So i understand that the hydroxide is the better version than the bicarbonate? What’s the best place to purchase ammonium hydroxide?

I try CLEAN with recommended dose for problem tank for 3 weeks, it does not help clean the turf algae off my rocks. Tuxedo Urchin does a better job than CLEAN. Just want to share my experience.,

Excellent. I might add UV and Ozone to that list.....

I made my own algae reactor. It exported all the nutrients. If it cleans the tank to well run it less.