Truly Centerpiece Worthy Rocks From Ecoscape!
When home hobbyists first started keeping marine fish tanks, they were full of playground sand and fake corals. For obvious reasons, this didn't work well. There was nothing in the aquarium to help buffer pH, and more importantly, not enough beneficial bacteria to colonize. This meant that fighting nitrogen build up was based mostly on chemical filtration and water changes of an honestly onerous frequency and gallonage. The addition of real live rock to the home display was an absolute game changer. Tanks got biologically balanced, and they looked way better too. These rocks also brought in a lot of beneficial organisms and different colors / growth forms of coralline algae. Conversely, they also have the potential to bring in unwanted pests.
Real live rock can still play a part in the hobbyist's aquarium. It can be harvested and cultured in an environmentally sensitive way. That being said, we've come to be huge fans of Ecoscape Reef Rock. It represents an amazingly simple solution to a wide variety of complications that can surround harvested natural rock. This rock is handmade, by the same people and in the same locations where live rock was once harvested. These people were / are sustenance fishers and harvesting / exporting live rock put food on their table. These communities would have been stressed to a break point without the replacement of that income stream, and Ecoscape Reef offers them a way to create a sustainable product and thus a sustainable income stream to them in one heck of an amazing win-win story.
There is a lot of variation in the quality of faux rocks out there. Some are plastic and some are basically painted concrete, and neither of these is very porous (or porous at all) adding little if anything to your aquarium's biological capabilities. Ecoscape Reef Rock is incredibly porous, more so than most real live rock. How much water can get into a chunk of rock, and how deeply it can get in there is the primary measurement of how well it can be colonized by the beneficial bacteria that gives our aquariums their ability to process nitrogenous waste.
Before you even lift the rock and notice how light it is, you're going to notice how amazing it looks. It is wildly, impressively real. It looks 100% the part of super high-quality live rock that has been cured and colonized in your aquarium for the last year, and because it's made of naturally occurring, land-based ingredients, it will continue to get covered by coralline, sponges, and your corals will grow onto it just like the real thing. There are tons of nooks and crannies, offering cover and comfort for all your fish and inverts, plus a huge amount of space for placing corals. Ecoscape Reef Rock is pH neutral, so you could use it in a huge variety of displays: Reefs (NPS, LPS and SPS), FOWLR, Seahorse tanks, you could even use it for brackish or freshwater if that's the look you're going for.
Over time, Ecoscape has released more and more different looks for rocks, which can be combined however you want to. On the first release, they had four different centerpieces you could choose from, and there is an article on those here: https://www.qualitymarine.com/news/create-a-reefscape-instantly-with-the-perfect-centerpiece-b952f3/. They've now released four more centerpieces labeled 5 through 8.
Model 5 is incredibly interwoven and has a solid pedestal to make it super stable on your aquarium bottom. It measures roughly 9”x10” and is 14.5” tall or so. Model 6 is more horizontally aligned, creating a unique low overhang, and offers the same stable base. It is 8”x12” and stands about 8.6” tall. Model 7 is much bigger than 5 or 6 and is a complex web of rock measuring 17.3”x11.8” and 10.2” tall. Also, very stable and can be placed in a variety of configurations. Model 8 is also much bigger, but is less rectangular, and a team favorite. It measures 16”x12.5” and is a bit taller than model 7 at 11.4” tall. You can see them all on our website, with multiple views of each here: https://www.qualitymarine.com/ecoscape/artificial-reef/
Ecoscape Reef Rock is as environmentally friendly as live rock is likely ever going to be. There is no boring, time-consuming curing process and it comes with the guarantee of not introducing anything to your display that you didn't want in there. It won't leach nitrate or phosphate. It's gorgeous out of the box and will continue to get better as its ages into your aquarium set up. Ecoscape Reef Rock's complex structures offer copious amount of cover for all your fish and inverts. It's the best-looking faux rock out there and honestly looks better than most “real” rock too.
Look, we're into the easy-button functionality of the Ecoscape Reef Rock series, but we're also super impressed with its looks and functionality. You can utilize all their different designs to give your display a look that is uniquely yours. In our opinion, this is truly the best live rock available today, of any kind, and it blows the other faux rocks out of the water. If you want to find it, just ask your Local Fish Store, it's available from any Quality Marine partner LFS. Stop waiting, get your rock upgrade today!