i also will never use LR without cooking first.ot one piece of LR with a little cyno on it and didnt notice till it was too late. had to do a blackout for a bloody week. on the up side my tank has never looked cleaner.

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I go for nice looking, light weight (porous) rock with a nice covering of coralline.

I avoid boulder or brick shapes even as base rock.

I've never cooked live rock. I've always just hand picked fully cured (smell it when & you'll know when it's not cured) live rock from the LFS & have never really had any issues.

I had bubble algae once, I had aiptasia once, but nothing that required breaking down the tank or anything drastic to deal with.

Everybody has a different preference I guess...

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i got for as porous rock as possible with as much stuff growing on it as possible. I look for unique macroalgae (stuff that ends up looking like broad leaves). I also look for encrusting corals because they often come back.

Shouldn't be a problem. Do weekly 100% waterchanges on the cook tub (remove rocks and swirl in clean SW during the WC to remove detritus) to quicken the process. Remember that if you're going to cook your rock you need to test for phosphates, and put the rock in your tank ONLY after you test 0 phosphates with a quality test kit, AND there is no growth on the rocks anymore. There's no point in doing it if you're not testing phosphates.

Curing liverock is one thing cooking it is pointless, especially in a newer tank. I'm one of those people who likes things on my rock though. I've gotten many different kinds from many different places over many many years and never had to "cook" it. I kind of like walt smiths ideas on curing live rock. If you cannot handle a little algae in your tank...well. Of course certain types are bad ie caulerpa and a few others, but i specifically looked for certain types of macro algae on my rocks....fed my tangs. Aiptasia fed my CBB etc. Covered in cyano or even GSP (some don't like it because it spreads quickly - THE GSP :). is another thing, you can clean it but cook it...naw. Dirty rock becomes clean with a good cleaning crew, coraline grows back etc etc. The only thing I am always concerned about and the one thing i do test for with rocks bought from someone else is copper...in a bin with a powerhead for a week and then test. Copper is the only thing i worry about when buying rock off of someone....the only thing...everything else can be dealt with quite easily. Copper CANNOT.

I would say some of the nicest rock i have ever seen, short of direct witnessing at the exporters...is the tampa bay saltwater rock. Amazing...at their facility and when ordered.

How do you test for copper?

As others indicated, I would recommend
1. new rock , the freshest out of the box is the best because you need clean, pest and chemical free rock. what ever life that is still there will die off anyway while your tank will be cycling
2. Porosity is important for bio filtration
3. Shapes, if you get lucky your box will have cool shapes but PVC structure was always good way to go
4. You only need 30% of live rock or less of the tank volume, if you get more you will need enormous water flow to penetrate this brick wall of live rock in order to get a decent flow. If you get less you will have reduced bacterial bio mass. Dense rock will support less bacteria and you will need more of it which leads you back to reduced flow problem.

Are there some good examples of using PVC as a frame for setting up structures?

I have a few different copper test kits...i test 3 times during each week of curing. If the test shows ...especially an increase then garbage is where the rock goes. There is a bit of copper in everyones systems though...just a very trace amount.

if i were to order some liverock from one of the US distributors (heard great things about a couple of them) would i be able to bring it back over the border?

"hi sir. what's in the box."

"umm...rocks."

"rocks?"

"yes...rocks..."

when i went to pick out LR for my first tank i went to OA. not only did janet help me pick out rocks, but she wasnt the least bit ****ed off that i took so long to pick out 28lbs of liverock.lol. i got some beautiful pieces. 2 gorilla crabs, but i got them, 1 aiptasia. i can handle it :)

i was looking at the rock at JL the other day. didnt seem to have a lot of live on it, but it was uncured, so who knows what could pop up.

i know that lots of ppl like uncured LR, but i kind of prefer cured liverock because it makes things easier, and im not a fan of cooking it.