Lavarock to Liverock?

pete620

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 3, 2005
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Ohio
Most live, and lace rock is lime based. I am unsure of its exact makeup though. The lava rock the origanal poster is laking about is scouria, and it is far different than any rock used for aquacalture.
 

teguc1

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 15, 2007
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eugene, Or
I had the same idea. Then my genius wife said "well what are the reefs in Hawaii made of, aren't the islands just huge volcanic flows?" And it clicked. I threw some of my lava rock into my sump with some chunks of live rock, and in about 4 months I had stuff starting to grow on it. I have lava beds nearby and we make trips up to them every year. My freshwater tank is filled with Lava rock, and I will use it again
 

Jaxon Jesse

Feeder Fish
Nov 7, 2017
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37
It's going to long process to transform lava rock to live rock. It's better using Living or Live Rocks, it's become the most effective biological filter for the safety of the marine plants and animals. live rock for saltwater aquarium contributes to the increase in the overall quality of the water. the rock gets settled down to any preferred location to run the biological cycles.
 

Hendre

Bawitius
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Jan 14, 2016
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It's going to long process to transform lava rock to live rock. It's better using Living or Live Rocks, it's become the most effective biological filter for the safety of the marine plants and animals. live rock for saltwater aquarium contributes to the increase in the overall quality of the water. the rock gets settled down to any preferred location to run the biological cycles.
Hi and welcome :)

This thread is 10 years old, not sure if you'll get any replies
 

Yuki Rihwa

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
Jan 22, 2015
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Asia
I'll just add some information that might useful for someone.
Lava rock usually content high iron and leaching silica into water and leading into major algae bloom so It's might not good for home marine saltwater system.
Yes, majority of wild reef are made of under water volcano lava rocks but it in ocean for millions of years already :p
 

Itsadeepbluesea

Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
Apr 6, 2008
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I used some in my very first FOWL tank about 20 years ago. I vaguely remember people telling me at the time about it possibly leaching. Definitely something to keep in mind as well as the other recommendations by people here. It did fine in my tank, no issues I noted, but the tank was not up for very long , only about a year or so, so I can't speak to problems that may arise as the tank ages.
 
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