How to know live rocks from dead rocks when purchasing ?

[minajaguar]

How to know live rocks from dead rocks when purchasing ?
cause LFS put dead and live rocks together in his tanks ...
so .. how to buy live rocks ..... because i afraid i purchase dead rocks instead of live

 

[little_fish]

Anything that has been in a saltwater tank will become live. All live means is that it has a population of bacteria living on it that can process fish wastes to less toxic chemicals. That is how you can make live rock from dead, dry rock.

 

[Bifferwine]

Live rock will tend to be more colorful -- it will have greens and reds on it. It will smell like the ocean, too. It may also have sponges growing on it.

 

[sen5241b]

Smell! Dead rock smells bad. Coralline is good indicator of live rock.

 

[minajaguar]

thanks .... i heard about methods to accelerate Coralline algae growth ... ?

 

[Ted]

You can take a piece of rock with it on it and scrape it off into the water. There is also a product called purple up that a few people have use ( i havent)