Lava Rock Bad?

[Krakilin]

One of my fellow reefers told me that I shouldn't have just lava rock in my saltwater setup - especially because it was sitting in freshwater for a long time.

There is no growth on any of the lava rock, so I decided to put some Fiji and tonga live rock in there. I bought about 35 pounds of LR today and dropped it in my 50 gallon.

I guess my question is should I leave the lava rock in there or slowly take it out over time?

 

[Animal Mother]

I used a lot of lava rock as base rock. It is very porous, so if you mixed it with live rock, it should become "live" after a few months of being in with the real live rock. The only problems you should have from it being in a freshwater tank are if you used any tank treatment chemicals.

The problem with using it is that it's not serving as a biological filter like real live rock. You should use it primarily to fill space, building on top of it with the live rock.

I found that lace rock is closer in appearance to live rock than your typical lava rock, but hey, as long as it's porous it will eventually serve better purpose than a lot of the stuff I see used as base rock.

We actually have a 30lb chunk of limestone or "holey" rock in our seahorse tank that was ugly green when we started the tank, but now it's covered in coralline, worms, and corals.

 

[Jean]

I don't see why you can't use some. A lot of the shores around this aquarium are lava benches......we have no choice but to use lava rock (& volcanic basalt, granite, breccia etc etc etc!!)

J