For as long as we can remember Live rock has been the basis for many reef tanks, it’s biodiversity and it’s colour. It can be really exciting watching appears from the rock after it’s added to your aquarium.

For all the fantastic success stories you see from reef aquariums using live rock, you can pretty much find one that’s the polar opposite, the issue lies within the fact that you can’t pick and choose what critters and other forms of life you may get on your live rock.  There are plenty of nasties that if not controlled early on can take over an aquarium and cause nothing but headaches (see the prolific Aiptasia as a starter!)

This is where using a dried reef rock as the base for your new reef tank can make a huge difference to the long-term success of a reef aquarium.

Given time dried reef rock will provide exactly the same filtration capabilities as it’s live counterpart, safe in the knowledge that the chances of you having introduced many of the pest species that are commonly found on live rock have been greatly diminished, it’s incredibly rare that any pest species are introduced with dried reef rock.

It is just as important to ensure that your aquarium cycles when using dried reef rock, it is not a shortcut or quicker way of doing things, in fact, it can take slightly longer than wet live rock, but the myriad of bacto boosters now available for use in marine aquaria these will help to have your dried reef rock working efficiently in no time at all.

iQuatics dried reef rock is collected from a sustainable source, it is not taken directly from reefs and left to dry so it’s also a more ethical way of starting your reef adventure.

Let’s not overlook cost, dried reef rock is considerably cheaper than it’s wet counterpart, on average you would expect to pay around the £200 mark for 20kg of live rock, the equivalent amount of dried reef rock from iQuatics is only £69.99, just think what you could do with the £130 you’ve just saved!