• Branching form - open, finger-like pieces that build height and structure without the visual mass of boulder rock, so the tank keeps its swim space.
• Around 50% void space - interconnected micro and macro pores through each branch, which is where nitrifying bacteria actually colonise.
• Spored bacteria infused - AragAlive treatment seeds the rock so a new system's biological filter starts from something rather than nothing.
• No curing and no die-off - this is dry rock of marine origin with nothing collected living on it, so there is no ammonia spike and no weeks of curing in a bin.
• No hitchhikers - no aiptasia, no bristleworms, no vermetid snails and no nuisance algae arriving with the rock.
• Coralline-look coating - engineered aragonite coatings that maintain the porosity rather than sealing it, which is the usual failing of painted rock.
• More usable surface per kilogram - branch shapes give you far more frag-mounting positions per kilo than solid rock, because almost all of the surface is reachable by light and flow.

• Approximately 20 lb (9 kg) of branching Life Rock

Not included: base rock to build from, aquarium sand, reef putty or cement, and any bacterial starter. CaribSea does not publish a piece count for the Belize Branch box, because pieces are individually shaped and the count varies with how the box packs out. Rock is sold by weight, not by piece.

Branch rock solves a specific problem: a scape built entirely from boulder rock ends up as a solid mass that blocks flow, traps detritus behind it and leaves nowhere for light to reach the lower third.

Branching pieces do the opposite. Water moves through the structure rather than around it, so dead spots are rare and detritus keeps moving until the skimmer or filter takes it out. The open form also means light reaches coral placed low on the structure, not just the top.

The trade-off is stability. Branch rock is naturally top-heavy and does not stack by weight alone the way flat or boulder rock does. Anything built with it wants bonding rather than balancing - see the setup steps below.

The widely used guideline, and the figure CaribSea's own Life Rock listings quote, is 1 lb of rock per US gallon of display volume - about 0.12 kg per litre. Most reefers use branch rock as part of a scape rather than all of it, so the table shows both cases.

Boxes are rounded up to the next whole box. Many modern reef scapes deliberately run below these figures to keep open sand and cleaner flow, so treat the table as the traditional ceiling rather than a target. Because rock is sold per kilogram and every piece is individually shaped, weights are approximate and the pieces you receive will not match the photograph.

Life Rock is dry rock with bacteria added, not ocean-collected live rock. That distinction is why CaribSea can say no curing is required: there is no sponge, worm or algae life on it to die in transit and release ammonia into your display.

The spored bacteria give the biological filter a head start, but they do not replace the cycle. A new tank still has to build a bacterial population sized to its stocking, so dose ammonia or stock slowly and keep testing until ammonia and nitrite both read zero.

What you also do not get is the biodiversity that comes with collected live rock - the copepods, sponges and microfauna. If that is what you are after, this is the wrong product.

1. Unpack over a towel. Branch rock is the most fragile form in the range and thin tips snap on a hard bench.
2. Rinse in saltwater or RO water if there is packing dust on the pieces. It is not required, but it keeps the first day's water clearer.
3. Dry-fit the structure outside the tank. Branch rock rarely balances on its own, so work out the arrangement before anything is wet.
4. Bond the joins with reef-safe cyanoacrylate gel, backed with putty at the load-bearing points. Branching shapes are top-heavy and will not hold by weight alone.
5. Seat the finished structure on the base glass rather than the sand bed, then dress sand around it.

Suitable for: marine and reef aquariums of any size; SPS and mixed reefs where you want many separate coral positions with light and flow reaching all of them; open, minimal aquascapes built on pillars rather than walls; and hard alkaline freshwater tanks such as Malawi and Tanganyika displays, where the aragonite holds pH and carbonate hardness up.

Not suitable for: planted aquariums, soft-water community tanks, blackwater and Amazonian biotopes, shrimp tanks and discus systems, because calcium carbonate raises pH and hardness. It is also a poor choice as the only rock in a scape that needs caves for fish to sleep in, and it is not a replacement for cycling a new tank.

No maintenance schedule applies to the rock. In a marine tank the engineered coating is gradually overgrown by real coralline algae, usually within the first year, at which point the pieces stop reading as manufactured.

Branch rock is the easiest form to keep clean because flow reaches nearly all of it. A pass with a powerhead or baster at water changes is normally enough, and there is far less trapped detritus than a boulder scape produces.

Chips and snapped tips are cosmetic. A broken branch usually makes a perfectly good frag plug or a smaller feature piece, so keep the offcuts.

• CaribSea Life Rock Original 18kg - the plain bulk rock to build the base of the scape before the branches go on top.
• CaribSea Life Rock Flatz 9kg - flat plates that stack into stable footings for top-heavy branch structures.
• CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink - live aragonite sand from the same bacterial process, to dress the base.
• CaribSea Purple-Up - calcium and strontium supplement aimed at bringing coralline algae across the coating sooner.
• Life Rock Arch 12" 4pk - ready-made swim-throughs, if you want caves and tunnels the branch form does not give you.

CaribSea does not publish a warranty term for Life Rock. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law apply regardless and are not limited by anything the manufacturer does or does not offer.

The Australian distributor notes that because of the fragile nature of this rock, pieces can break in transit, and branch shapes are the most breakage-prone form CaribSea ships. Broken branches remain entirely usable as rock and frag mounts, but if intact pieces matter to you, unpack and check the box on arrival. Weights are approximate because the product is sold per kilogram.

Is CaribSea Life Rock Belize Branch live rock?

No. It is dry aquascaping rock of marine origin, infused with spored bacteria. There is no living sponge, worm or algae on it, which is why no curing is needed and why no pests arrive with it.

How many pieces are in a box?

CaribSea does not publish a piece count. The box is sold by weight at approximately 20 lb (9 kg), and because every branch is individually shaped, the number of pieces varies from box to box.

Does it need curing or rinsing?

No curing is required - CaribSea states this explicitly. A quick rinse in saltwater or RO water to remove packing dust is worth doing for water clarity on the first day, but it is optional.

Will branch rock stack on its own?

Rarely. Branching shapes are top-heavy and have small contact points, so a structure built from them needs reef-safe cyanoacrylate gel and putty at the joins. Flat or boulder rock will stack by weight; this will not.

Can I mount coral frags directly to it?

Yes. The porous aragonite takes reef-safe cyanoacrylate well, and the open form means far more of the surface gets useful light and flow than on a solid rock of the same weight.

Can I use it in a freshwater tank?

Only in hard alkaline freshwater. At 97% calcium carbonate it raises pH and carbonate hardness, which helps in an African Rift Lake tank and works against you in a planted, blackwater or shrimp setup.