Years ago I tried to start a reef tank with dry rock and I had a terrible experience. It was one problem after another, including dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria and a bacterial bloom. I just couldn’t grow SPS like I had done so with live rock and I vowed to never use dry rock again. The issues stemmed from a lack of biodiversity and microfauna with the dry rock. Additionally, I probably did not dose enough bacteria to build up the biological bed.

With my most recent tank build I had a very quick cycle using live rock from KP Aquatics. The tank has had a couple of hiccups but so far the SPS are thriving. So why would I switch back to dry rock for a reboot of MORE