Life Rock is a new product from Caribsea which is looking pretty darn close to the purple stuff from Real Reef, but with a wildly different origin. Unlike the alkalinity boosting, purple manmade concrete pieces from Real Reef, Caribsea’s Life Rock is actually mined aragonite rock which has been treated and coated with a special ingredient.
The purple coating of Life Rock makes it look very attractive and ready to build a reef with, while an invisible coating of bacterial film means that Life Rock is preloaded with the microbes needed to get the biological cycle jump started in a saltwater aquarium. Being made from a more natural starting product gives Life Rock the variability of real live rock, for better or worse, so every piece is unique yet completely pest free.
The biggest boon about Caribsea’s Life Rock is that it should be one of the most competitively priced rock choices for building a proper reef tank. Imagine being able to buy reef rock, at about the price of base live rock, with both the purple color and similar biological properties of cured live rock. If Life Rock lives up to the promise, building a good looking reef tank with a “manufactured” rock product will never be easier or cheaper.
