Quick question: Is my live rock fake?

[Ethan Martel]

Hey everyone, I just bought some new "Live Rock" from my LFS. They had multiple options, but I recently got dry rock and I want something that will help build coralline algae and also filter the tank.

Basically at the store it looked rich and well cultured, covered in beautiful coralline. But when I put it in my tank im starting to wonder if its just dry rock or something with paint on it. I originally bought it as one big 10 pound piece and I broke it off so I could build up some shapes.

Heres a picture, I have some older live rock and some dry rock in this picture as well, with the newest stuff being the purple. Im curious to know what you all think, i might just be crazy and its actually really good.

 

[3lusive]

Looks like its the painted stuff to me . I have some and it has chipped spots that are bright white like the spots on yours.

 

[brandon429]

what about pods, worms, sponges, the universal white tubed fanworms that stick to live rocks, the circular spirorbidae, the vermetids, the smell and the cross section... any rock underwater that long has to have these side inclusions, even if cured in a tank. Can't be just coralline alone, inspect the close ups, post a macro pic of that little white line running up it



break off a test small chunk, lets see a cross sec. we can verify this by visual long before the ammonia test is ran, we have a whole thread based on no test visual id of live rock. test time. we can always, always find some other confirmation which is how we visually ID non coralline live rock that might be fully ready but not much coralline. that looks too good to be true. five years ago this would have never happened lol.

 

[Mycota]

I see a fan worm on it so id say its live. It may be painted. That has been a recent trend.

It will all turn purple with time. I feel like snails and hermit crabs spread coraline the best. Just buy a few of each with a lot of purple on the shells and it will get everywhere as they climb around and scrape against your rock work.

 

[Tobbe]

real reef rock? the color looks quite like it and its manmade but good quality

 

[Ethan Martel]

Hey everyone, I just bought some new "Live Rock" from my LFS. They had multiple options, but I recently got dry rock and I want something that will help build coralline algae and also filter the tank.

Basically at the store it looked rich and well cultured, covered in beautiful coralline. But when I put it in my tank im starting to wonder if its just dry rock or something with paint on it. I originally bought it as one big 10 pound piece and I broke it off so I could build up some shapes.

Heres a picture, I have some older live rock and some dry rock in this picture as well, with the newest stuff being the purple. Im curious to know what you all think, i might just be crazy and its actually really good.

View attachment 663289

As long as it seems like it's good quality and the paint won't harm the water if it is. I've smelled it, and it just smells like regular live rock/ aquarium. It definitely looks good too in my opinion.

 

[lbacha]

I used aged caribsea liferock in my tank. It's the painted dry rock from them that was aged in the sump of one of my LFS's systems. I really like it as it looks like some of the live Fiji rock I got 15-20 years ago covered in coralline but without all the hitchhikers that come from live rock. The painted purple is currently getting covered with lighter pink coralline so eventually it will all blend together.

 

[Ethan Martel]

I used aged caribsea liferock in my tank. It's the painted dry rock from them that was aged in the sump of one of my LFS's systems. I really like it as it looks like some of the live Fiji rock I got 15-20 years ago covered in coralline but without all the hitchhikers that come from live rock. The painted purple is currently getting covered with lighter pink coralline so eventually it will all blend together.

That sounds pretty good then. It definitely looks good and as long as it works like live rock I'm not picky. Plus it's probably better environmentally since I'm not really taking from the natural reefs. Honestly now that in looking at it there are many different shades of purple so I'm thinking it might already have some algae growing on it