Aquarium Dry Rock

Dry rock represents a growing trend among hobbyist to shift away from live rock sources. Dry rock is aquacultured or man made rock that is very porous and designed for aquariums usage. Man made rock is usually made from aragonite and aquacultured dry rock is pulled from various areas of the coasts in the US or other countries.

Aquarium Dry Rock 

Aquarium Dry rock presents a number of advantages over live rock:

  • Pest free
  • Eco friendly
  • Less Expensive
  • Ability to Aquascape

Being pest free is probably the most significant advantage that aquarium dry rock has over live rock. There are many nasty hitchhikers one can bring into your rock with live rock. Nuisance algae such as bubble algae is not uncommon with live rock. Pest such as mantis shrimp, flat worms, red bugs, and nudibranches are common hitchhikers. Other pests like Aiptasia, bubble algae, and bryopsis can easily overtake a tank. You can save yourself a lot of headache by sticking to dry rock over live rock.

Eco friendly has also been a big draw for reefers. As we all know, taking from the wild reef is not a sustainable practice and a lot of quality manufacturers and aquaculture farms have done a lot of good bringing sustainable practices to the hobby. By purchasing aquarium dry rock, you support this industry. Some of these companies like Walt Smith International employ local natives to do the aqua-culturing which brings jobs to a number of disadvantaged countries throughout the world. 

Saving money is also not a bad thing. Aquarium dry rock will often be at least 1.5 times less expensive as comparable live rock, as much as 2.5 times when purchased in bulk. When you can save money, not deal with pests, and help save the planet it is kind of a no brainer.

For the more artistic and design oriented reef aquarists out there, aquarium dry rock allows us to utilize our full imagine in designing our rock-work. Because the rock is dry, we have the ability to mold the rock-work to our liking. We can even cut rocks into pieces to make them more stable, create new tunnels with a chisel, and place rock-work together with epoxy. The possibilities of award winning aquarium design is very possible with dry rock.

Nearly every reefer these days start with aquarium dry rock due to these inherit advantages and then use a small amount of live rock to seed the tank with aesthetically pleasing coralline algae. We offer some of the highest quality dry rock available out in the market. You won’t be disappointed in our selection!