Filter effect of live rock vs artificial?

[mastou]

I have tried to ask a couple times in Danish forums without luck so let’s see if I have more success here (Hopefully the right forum?).

I am very curios if anybody have tested if "artificial" live rocks (e.g. homemade live rocks) has the same filter capacity as the real thing - have any of you tested this or heard of an comparison?

I figured something like taking 10 pieces of "artificial" live rocks and 10 "real" live rocks add them to a running aquarium and leave them in for a year (this should expose the rocks to the same conditions). Then the rocks are taken up and placed into small separate tanks (of similar size) and water is added (has to come from the same aquarium and have nitrat / nitrit in a dose high enough to be detected). By testing the water over a period it will be possible to see if there is a difference in the rocks filter capacity...

Maybe there will also be a difference between different recipes of homemade live rocks?

I haven't found much information about this topic the nearest I came a test was: Live rock as biological filter: Hit or Myth? (http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rs/feature/index.php)...

If this is not the right forum feel free to move this thread to a more suitable one :)

/Magnus

[bertoni]

I don't know of any studies like that. It's very hard to say which type of rock would work better. Testing would be difficult, because live rock of either sort is highly variable in shape. I can't think of any way to control that variability easily.

You could try perhaps in the DIY forum.