Live rocks or Dry rocks for new tank?

I've been researching on cycling a new tank. Some people use dry rocks and some use Live rocks. From what I understand, dry rocks basically Live rocks that have been dried out (which kills any microorganism which might carry something).

So pretty obvious in my opinion to use dry rocks. The benefits are, I can take my time to aquascape the rocks and I don't have to worry about what the live rocks might give me. Plus those dry rocks will be live eventually anyways.

Now, I have seen a lot of articles and videos recommending Live rocks. WHY? Is it just because you will cycle the tank faster? Am I missing something here?

 

Benefits beside the quicker cycling times are going to be that you will have a) more coraline on your rocks, and it will spread faster and b) more critters - starfish, pods, dusters, etc. You can often get bonus hitchhikers - polyps, encrusting corals, etc.

We probably had the most fun for the first few weeks just watching how many different critters are on just the live rocks! My boys would would start yelling for us a couple times a day because they saw a new critter or worm or something.

You can pick up bad hitchhikers with live rock, but you can get those anyway without live rock - on frags.

Many people use mostly dry rock and along with a live rock or two to seed them.

To me it came down to cost. Started out with some live rock, but everything since has been dry.

 

I've set up every tank with cured live rock. Because I had it lol. Get dry rock, drill it insert acrylic rods, epoxy, make the coolest formations you can. Thats my advice. Its more than worth it in the end.

 

I like a lot of the critters from my livestock, but not the rest! If I had to do it over I'd do what ingtar suggests just for the cooler scraping options and the more secure structure you'll have! Just seed it with a few pieces of LR from your lfs

 

I look back at early pics of my DT when it was almost all base rock.

After 6-9 months, It's all LR and corrallline.