Interesting question

Good question!! I plan to dip everything I add...maybe wont kill everything, but still a great question.

 

I am 50/50. On one hand, you avoiding any bad hitchikers. On the other hand, you are avoiding any good hitchikers. IMO there are far more good HH with LR than bad, but I am fairly new to this hobby and by no means an expert. I just see all of the filter feeders (feather dusters, other tube worms, sponges, bivalves, etc) and detritus consumers (spaghetti worms, peanut worms, pods, etc) that come with LR. I guess you would have to look longterm to see what difference it truly makes. I do feel all the beneficial HH make a big difference in keeping the tank "clean", but have nothing to back this up with.

 

good luck with the new start up

 

I always try to limit hitch hikers in my system. I use LS which is just DS with bacteria added.It should not contain hitch hikers and I have always used it with sucess. I also subscribe to the use of base rock with only small pieces of LR rubble to seed algaes or sometimes just scraping some Corraline from a piece of LR..People have successful bare bottom tanks so the answer to the question of do I need LS? No you don't.
It stands to reason that most of the living things we add to our systems adds to the bioload in some way or another. The more you add the more polluted the water can become.Limiting the number of animals (This goes for "CUC" as well) is essential IMO.
Dipping alone will not keep parasites and hitchhikers from entering the system.

 

I don't think LR or LS is necessary to start. The bacteria will spontaneously come into existence out of thin water P)

I would expect (and look forward to your findings) that you'll not have things like feather dusters, those micro star fish, etc. and other hitchhikers.

My tank has about 10% original LR and the rest is/was dry rock. When I find things like small clams, it's only ever on the LR pieces...

 

I'm very interested to see how this turns out, I am in the process of starting my tank up and was going to be using mostly dry rock and the sand from reef rocks. I'm not sure if their sand is "live" or not, but if this works I will probably forgo getting something like dr tims or bio spira

 

Well I can't comment on the BS but I know the Dr. Tim's work's and is a good jump start for the cycle. Bacteria grow at different rates and the population waxes and wanes in our tank. So techincally your tank is never done "cycling".Whether your sytem is diverse or not is a complicated thing and everyone's tank is different.(very important to remember) Most of the time the success or failure comes down to this waste import must equal waste export.

 

Wow!!! Great responses...I am kinda playing Guinnea Pig on this one. I had such a bad experience with Mojave anemones and Aptasia, that I wanted to try to re-start this time with NO chance of unwanted hitchhickers. It may be impossible to do so as I add to the tank, my point is, I spent an insane amount of money at start up believing that I HAD to have this stuff.Then again I have a rather large tank, so I needed a lot more of everything. It will be interesting to see where this goes. I will post pics soon of the tanks progression. So far it looks great. Thanks to all that have chimed in.

 

i started my tank with out anything live, at all and its doing great

 

I started my tank with 100 % dry rock a year and a half ago and started with beach sand my rocks are purple with all kinds of stuff from the sand even a mole crab, it has pompom things.