Dry Macro rock - does it leach phosphate or silicate?

[twentyleagues]

I have life rock and it was all white inside.

I ordered a 4 piece box 3 of 4 arches were broken and they were as I described. This was at most 2 years ago. How old are yours? Maybe they changed up? Its not dark grey its more of an off white/ light grey not the same color as Marco and doesnt look like it was formed as a solid piece. From my understanding the Marco rock and other mined rocks like it are pretty much the same composition and very few places actually mine the rock.

 

[merkmerk73]

I ordered a 4 piece box 3 of 4 arches were broken and they were as I described. This was at most 2 years ago. How old are yours? Maybe they changed up? Its not dark grey its more of an off white/ light grey not the same color as Marco and doesnt look like it was formed as a solid piece. From my understanding the Marco rock and other mined rocks like it are pretty much the same composition and very few places actually mine the rock.

It's definitely a mix

You can find some artificial rubble and whatnot in the liferock pieces, along with large chunks of pure calcium carbonate

You make a good argument to go with marco rocks over liferock though, just for that reason.

 

[twentyleagues]

I’m


Yep different rock and very difficult to get going for sure.

Thats weird to me. I have added Marco rock to tanks in the past with no issues they were running though. I was out of the hobby for 12 years. I did my first dry rock start up in January been going well for the last 8 months getting coralline growth on the rocks no weird/ugly stage.

 

[Johnd651]

I ordered a 4 piece box 3 of 4 arches were broken and they were as I described. This was at most 2 years ago. How old are yours? Maybe they changed up? Its not dark grey its more of an off white/ light grey not the same color as Marco and doesnt look like it was formed as a solid piece. From my understanding the Marco rock and other mined rocks like it are pretty much the same composition and very few places actually mine the rock.

About 3 months ago. That's probably the only picture I have dry, but you can see the white on the few spots it was chipped.

 

[Reefahholic]

Liferock is not actually 100% limestone its man made agracrete. Does it contain pieces of limestone/quarried calcium carbonate rock probably but the majority is concrete. Break a piece of Marco rock whats inside? More white rock. Order a box of liferock and open it up, take out one of the many broken arches. Whats inside? Grey concrete and bits and pieces of calcium carbonate.

I believe Caribsea did make some man-made rock also. However a lot of it was mined out of Australia or the Dominican Republic if I remember correctly, and is real natural rock. More likely Australia. They were fusing some of it with bacteria.

Either way it’s not the Florida quarried rock. If I had to pick, I would go with the caribsea for sure if you want the least amount of problems. If you want to Aquascape very easily then go with Marco, but just be ready for potential headaches for the first year at least.

I have two different Marco aquascapes. One is sitting in a cow pasture right now. The other one is in the bottom of a river down the road. I’m currently about to do a scape with Pukani, Haitian, Tonga, and Marshall Islands, but will incorporate some premium Marco shelf as nothing else has that look. I personally hate Marco, but it’s hard to find premium shelf rock that thin. Otherwise, I would never use it again.

 

[twentyleagues]

It's definitely a mix

You can find some artificial rubble and whatnot in the liferock pieces, along with large chunks of pure calcium carbonate

You make a good argument to go with marco rocks over liferock though, just for that reason.

I have made agracrete in the past Liferock looks just like it. I used white portland cement, crushed oyster shell, a little crushed coral and some little pieces of marco. It worked well, but the curing process took months. Weekly water changes in the curing totes GH/KH would spike to 15+ ph started around 12 and phosphates would show up on the api phosphate test in excess of 2 if I remember it correctly. Pretty sure I went through near 1000g of rodi water. I really dont see a large company that is kicking out 1000s of these doing that. I have heard you can use muratic acid to cut down the cure time. I made an arch that was 3' long and about 5" wide about 2" thick, A "tower" that was about the size of a softball around and 18" tall and some flat panels with shelves for the back of the tank those were 18"tall and all 3 measured 48" long. So agracrete is viable it was in my tank for years no issues that I could tell came directly from it. I have just wondered about their curing process after seeing quite a few really bad ugly stage tanks using their product. I should figure out where I stuck that box and run some tests.

 

[Reefahholic]

Thats weird to me. I have added Marco rock to tanks in the past with no issues they were running though. I was out of the hobby for 12 years. I did my first dry rock start up in January been going well for the last 8 months getting coralline growth on the rocks no weird/ugly stage.

Sometimes you just get lucky man.

Check out this live stream with Craig Bingman and Mike Paletta.

Go to 7:17 and then go back to 2:20:

 

[twentyleagues]

About 3 months ago. That's probably the only picture I have dry, but you can see the white on the few spots it was chipped.

Mine were way worse than that. They do use actual rock pieces in it though but the main body of mine was not solid rock. Maybe like @Reefahholic said you actually may have gotten a batch of mined rock.