help with reef safe rock

A

amf82380

New Member
can someone help me out I am not so sure now about the red lava rock I have in my 10gal nano the tag said saife for fresh or salt water but jesse was surprised to see it in my tank I have seen it in one other reef tank some where on line but I am not sure it has been in there about 2 months now and I havent noticed any problem with it or the corals or fish but I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas on the long term effects of it ? heres a pic its not the best to give you an idea of what rock I am talking about
 

Attachments

skipm

skipm

Moderator
Staff member
It is my understanding that lava rock is reef safe, anything that may have been in it has been rendered inert by the heat. I used lava rock in place of liverock in a dwarf seahorse tank with no ill effects, in fact with some of the colors on the rock it looked very much like mature LR.
 
M

mutt

New Member
lava rock is usually used in freshwater applications, i've never seen it in a saltwater tank and i've been involved with this hobby for 10+ years.
I can't say it's necessarily bad, but replacing it with live rock will improve the water condition and make the tank look natural.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
i agree lava rock is generally basaltic in composition (not CaCO3 in other words) it probably will not leach anything into the water and should be relatively inert - but is unnatural. reefs are made of coral skeleons and there is an inherient buffering and stabilizing quality to live rock that that rock does not have :evil: .........i would personally remove it but.......up to you
 
ripcurrent

ripcurrent

New Member
On one hand lava rock is super pourous... aside from not really having the buffering qualities mentioned above its probably a good host for bacteria and may work well as a supplement to live rock.

Then on the other hand... EEK!!! What the heck is that red thing in your tank?!!!

:mrgreen:
 
A

amf82380

New Member
lol yeah I agree rip :mrgreen: Ill be switching tanks up grading to a 20h in the next month so I will be removing it and it wont be going into the new tank only the real thing in that one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top