Good live rock

[jslaney]

So I am going to ask the newbie question.

How to buy good live rock?

I have read lots on live rock and have a general understanding of the different areas that it is collected and what life forms it may have hitch hiking.

Unfortunatly whenever I go to LFS, the live rock I see in their sale tanks looks like crap compared to the pictures on the internet. I dont see good corraline growth, I dont see any possible hitch hikers and most of the rocks look like they are covered in some kind of ditritus.

I will be spending 3 bills shortly and want rock that has as much life on it as possible.

I will not ask that anyone names specific stores because that is unfair, (and I think not allowed in the forum) but I will ask, can I expect to purchase what I see online and in books? Do I only have to be patient for a good shipment to come in or is what I see what I get and no one really gets all the cool hitchhikers.

I want to go through the fun experiance of finding odd creatures crawling out of my live rock.

I dont think I should have to pay premium prices for rock that is simply has been colonised by bacteria. I could create similar live rock in my tank with some dead rock and a decomposing shrimp.

Was that a rant or a question? you decide and answer, hopefully.

Thanks.

[untamed]

I find it difficult to talk about live rock without starting a rant myself....Let's just say that I also believe that LR is much more than bacteria on/in rock.

I chose to purchase aquacultured LR from Florida through www.tbsaltwater.com

My reasons were:
1) I believe the rock has more life primarily due to more rapid transit time between ocean and my tank.
2) I KNOW exactly where/how the rock was collected and feel that it was done in an environmentally sustainable way that is monitored by the Florida government.

The downside was that it cost more than purchasing at a LFS due to shipping costs. Some would also consider much of the life that I got as downside...things like mantis, crabs etc. For me, I enjoy keeping those things. Also, the rock doesn't have the elaborate shapes that you can get with rock from other areas.

Have a look from pg 19 http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=28436&page=19

[krisalexander]

Something I have heard good things about it getting a store to order you a box. and then when they get it in, you take it and cycle it yourself and then everything is still living in it and it hasnt been cleaned out yet. Where abouts are you located?

Kris

[Salmon King]

Live rock is shipped from forein countrys covered in wet newspaper not in water.I would say it/s out of water for quite awhile.The longer it/s out the more die off.When I would pick Live rockI would go by smell myself.I sure saw some nice looking bad smelling rock though.Pretty well all the coralline dies anyway.It will gro back after you put it in your tank.Garf reefs had a good article on how to grow it back fast.I/m sure somebody on canreef would know.

[justinl]

TBS ships their LR with water in the box. essentially it's underwater all the time. No other place i know of does this practice. Everywhere else ships in wet newspaper. If you want fully cured LR with a pretty good guarantee of no cycle then id say your best chance is to wait until someone local decides to sell off some LR. that's what the classifieds are for! :biggrin:

or if you're a handy man with some time on your hands, you can MAKE your own LR. that way you can get custom shapes to your own liking, while spending about a third of the cash. plus it's super easy on the environment. GARF had a page on how to make it... lets see if i can find it...

[woodcarver]

www.garf.org/
Go to " How to " file ,then Agrocrete ( by Eddie Postma )

,.............Dave

[fishmaster]

TBS ships their LR with water in the box. essentially it's underwater all the time. No other place i know of does this practice. Everywhere else ships in wet newspaper. If you want fully cured LR with a pretty good guarantee of no cycle then id say your best chance is to wait until someone local decides to sell off some LR. that's what the classifieds are for! :biggrin:

or if you're a handy man with some time on your hands, you can MAKE your own LR. that way you can get custom shapes to your own liking, while spending about a third of the cash. plus it's super easy on the environment. GARF had a page on how to make it... lets see if i can find it...

I got my rock uncured from my lfs. It came in wet paper, but wasn't too stinky. In order to save some $, I added 40lbs of base rock to the 60lbs of live. The base rock is now becoming cover in coraline, and I'm sure it's fully functioning live rock. If you are going to cure your own, and want the most life possible; first make sure you remove as much of anything clearly dead or dying. If you think it MIGHT make it,get rid of it. No matter how you look at it, anything that dies will cause a major ammonia spike which will kill more stuff. Secondly, spend the money on salt, and do major water changes every couple of days. Make sure to remove as much dead or dying stuff each time. Shake each rock around in a bucket of saltwater to help dislodge dead stuff. The more time you spend, the more that will survive. Make sure you run a good skimmer through the process as well as lots of flow. If you're not concearned with the hitch hikers, your rock will cycle just fine with no water changes in about 3-4 weeks. Your coraline will start to come back as soon as you put it under light. Hope this helps.
Shaun.

[jslaney]

Wow! Thanks for the great replies. Untamed I cannot believe the amount of life on your live rock. I am really happy as I am trying to set up my tank as sustainably as possible, (which when you think about it is kind of a joke). To get sustainable live rock and all that life is worth the extra price.

Thanks for the DIY links as well. Maybe when I get a bit more experience I will try that. Ideally I really want all the macro life rather then just the bacteria and algae though.

I am located in Calgary so I really hope TBS ships up to Canada. I will look into that.

Anyway thanks for the good ideas and responses.

Jonathan.

[howdy20012002]

u will need to get a CITES permit for the LR.
Actually the company that you are buying from will have to get it and it takes at leat a month to get it done.
so if you are looking for something immediate, it won't work from a US supplier.
HTH
Neal

[howdy20012002]

Actually looking at the webstie of TBS, they don't ship to canada.

[justinl]

yeah i belive untamed actually went down into the states to pick up the rock himself.

dave, thx for finding the aragocrete link for me:biggrin:

[woodcarver]

No prob:)

.................Dave

[BCOrchidGuy]

I buy live rock from the LFS, sometimes cured sometimes uncured. I prefer to get it right out of the box, that way I'm getting as much of the "stuff" as I can. Good live rock should be porous, you can get very dense rock or very open lightweight rock. I've got sponge, some sort of what looks like a pink encrusting tunicate, pods of all shapes and sizes, unique species of coraline algae, different types of tube worms, polyps etc on my rock. I've also got two odd looking creatures that so far seem to be harmless, they seem to just clean rock so I'm not to worried about them but I have no idea what they are. They only come out and night, they look like snails with out a shell but they have a blackish bulge where a shell would be. Maybe a flat worm of some sort I don't know, maybe about 3/8 of an inch long... who knows. Even when it's shipped in wet newspaper a lot of stuff is still alive, the homemade rock is great as you can make different shapes and sizes to fit your needs however, it doesn't add diversity of livestock where rock does. If you can get rock from Jakarta, some from Tonga and some from somewhere else, get a mix, you get a larger diversity of life, base rock is nice and cheap, you can use concrete drill bits to cut holes in it and zap strap it together to make shapes if you like and it's cheap and you don't have to wait for it to cure.

Doug

[fishytime]

Check out Red Coral in Calgary. He has some really nice Haitian and another one I cant remember the name of. Its a little pricey though.

[jslaney]

Its too bad that they dont ship up here. What a bureaucracy that I cant buy aquacultered live rock from the states but I can by who knows what taken from indo at the LFS

Hey Untamed, just wondering how you got yours from seattle. I am assuming you got them to send it to their airport but how did you get it across the border. I am a little nervous about having 300 dollars worth of live rock confiscated and dont really want to go to jail.

[bsyoun]

I just got some of Red Coral's Miyaki live rock a couple of weeks ago. They are a bit on the expensive side, but they're quite porous. If you want 'lively' live rock, his isn't too bad. I've found two zoos and a tiny featherduster worm on the 12 lbs I bought from him.

Here's a link to his rocks...

http://www.redcoralaquarium.com/Live%20Rock/Miyaki/Miyaki.htm

Ben

[Zylumn]

I bought a little of that live miyaki rock from red coral and was blown away with how live it is. It is pricey but would work as a great seed for base rock or diy rock.
my .02
kevin

[howdy20012002]

Even by driving down, nothing is guaranteed.
"Legally" you still would require the CITES when you arrive at the border.
However, most customs people aren't aware of what is required when it comes to this type of stuff.
If you just showed up and said oh yea, I picked up some rock for my tank, they probably wouldn't say anything....Probably is the key word.
For something like this, ignorance is sometimes bliss. I know that I came across the border last year with a couple of hundred lbs of LR without any problems. At that time, I didnt' know that CITES was required. Neither did the customs, because I did declare the LR at the border. All they were concerned with was the GST on the total amount.

[untamed]

Its too bad that they dont ship up here. What a bureaucracy that I cant buy aquacultered live rock from the states but I can by who knows what taken from indo at the LFS

Hey Untamed, just wondering how you got yours from seattle. I am assuming you got them to send it to their airport but how did you get it across the border. I am a little nervous about having 300 dollars worth of live rock confiscated and dont really want to go to jail.

I put the back seats down, and filled the car. Whatever you do, don't try to hide stuff...just tell them what you have and how much it is worth...go in and give them their money.

I can only provide my personal experience which is that I have had no issues with bringing aquacultured LR across the border. I've always travelled with a lot of information about what the product actually is, in case they want to open a box and look. So far, they have not had any interest in inspecting it or questioned me in any detail about it.

They do struggle with how to classify it. On my next trip, I'll bring the paperwork from the previous crossing to help them out. Last time they classified it as "limestone" for import purposes.

I avoid using the term "live" to describe the rock. That's a term that we use as hobbiests. To non-aquarists, that means very different things and they start searching for import criteria for live animals. If you end up at "live coral", then you are getting close to losing your shipment. To them, it is just "rock for an aquarium". If the conversation turns to "living coral", my response would be that the rock contains no living coral that I am aware of.

My POV is that it would not make any sense for Canada to NOT allow Florida aquacultured rock, when they allow natural LR to come in from other parts of the world and be sold at retail. Aquacultured rock is a product of the US...licenced for sale by the US and Florida governments for the express reason that it is deemed to be sustainably harvested.

My belief is that one rarely gets in trouble for trying to do the right thing.

[howdy20012002]

I would like to say again, however unlikely, that there is a possibilty of them confiscating the rock as it is required by law to have a CITES permit to bring it into Canada whether is is aquacultured or not.
Ultimately, regardless of what makes sense and seems like the "right thing", Customs can do what they want when you don't have the proper paperwork.
Chances are, you won't have any problems.
However, I just don't want to say that and then have it all confiscated by customs.
For something like this, if you don't have the proper documentation and they find out. you are pretty much hooped and won't be able to do anything to get the rock back. so you have to keep that possibility, however slight, in the back of your head.
Neal
(keeping in mind as well, that I myself have loaded my vehicle with LR and unknowingly broke the law when I easily came across the border. Like I said, ignorance is bliss.)

[Scavenger]

If I were to just be starting out again, I would have taken a completely different approach to acquiring my live rock.

When I first set up my initial tank, wide eyed and wet behind the ear, I was enthralled to find live rock at the LFS thriving with life. I purchased many pounds of rock containing brown star polyps, button polyps, mushrooms and other interesting treats.

As my reefing experience grew, I found I wanted to lean toward the LPS and SPS. But, by now my tank was infested with the formally desired life. There wasn't much available real estate. Many rock scrubbings, inverting rocks into the sandbed, anything short of cooking or nuking the rock was the choice of action.

To this day, I have not completely eliminated them, but have them under control with flow and I believe more intense lighting helps too. If I find myself overrun again, I believe I'll just try to trade in on cleaner rock. I think those dusty, dirty, not much coraline rocks sitting unwanted by others would be my first pick as long as the shape and porousness (is that a word) were nice. I'd look at that rock as I saw it months in the future, not in it's current state.

That's just my story, and I guess the moral is look to the future and what you see yourself wanting to keep as a reef years down the road.

[untamed]

That's what makes this hobby so great. There is no single "right" way to do things. It's about figuring out what kind of tank you want to have and then figuring out what sort of rock you need to make it happen.

[kwirky]

I have a theory that the small rubble that sits at the bottom of the tanks at LFS's is worth it's weight in gold :D

especially for nano-ers

[Scavenger]

Is your theory that most of that rubble has sat there unsold through shipment after shipment and was seeded from rocks all over the world???

Whoops, did I let the cat out of the bag?????

<insert evil laugh here>

[Oscar]

I just got some of Red Coral's Miyaki live rock a couple of weeks ago. They are a bit on the expensive side, but they're quite porous. If you want 'lively' live rock, his isn't too bad.

Ben

How expensive?

[fishytime]

$ 10/lb. Have some too and its lively alright.

[jslaney]

Great info guys, thanks.

I agree that if your going for a pure SPS tank it is probably best to go with well cured live rock but personally I want all the potentially destructive life.

Howdy and Untamed, thanks for the info on bringing it into Canada and for the cites stuff. I have a good month and a half before I need it, so I will try to get the cites taken care of before I order it.

The Red coral rock did look good and I am tempted to just go get that because its easier but that Florida aquacultured is just amazing rock and I think I am willing to go through the pain of getting it. It’s going to involve some very careful timing but I think I can do it.

Thanks again for all the help everyone.

Jon

[TSDing]

I found this at the CITES web page. Hope this helps. Scroll down to the last FAQ on the page. http://www.cites.ec.gc.ca/eng/sct9/index_e.cfm#11

According to the last sentence of the second paragraph it states that ""live rock" is not regulated by CITES, unless organisms from CITES-listed species are attached to the substrate". So basically it is stating that you can import live rock into Canada without a CITES permit.