Biodiversity in Canada
 

I have recently decided to start a new tank.
My current tank is 6 years old and I have not changed much about my routine and techniques since it was setup.

I see we can no longer get live rock like we used to. This leaves us cycling sterile rock with bacterial additives.

My most successful tanks have always been based off of live rock.

My tank right now that I am shutting down has an aiptasia problem and I do not want to transfer the pest to the new tank.

This leaves me wanting for a clean source of established biodiversity.

I see in the states there are many different sources of biodiversity packs, such as Gulf live rock, GARF, pods, live mud. None of these sources will ship to Canada.

Do we in Canada have a source where we can purchase biodiversity to add to our sterile tanks to try and mimic some of high quality live rock?

Thank you,

Adam

Put clean rock in salt water and cycle the tank. Everything you need bacteria-wise is in the air we breathe. You can supplement with MB7 or Dr. Tims if you want to speed things up. Most LFS's carry pods in Canada too. I've seen many successful tanks started without live rock.

I respectfully disagree that everything you need is in the air.

Everything you need for the simple nitrogen cycle may be in the air, but the environment we are trying to mimic is much more complicated than that.

The nitrogen cycle is the easy part.

I recently purchased raw live rock from Badlands Marine for this reason exactly. Dry rock flat out socks. Look at people having success like WWC may use dry rock but they openly admit to using live rock from other systems that are years or a decade old. Same thing as LR.

A dry rock tank can take a year or more to finally be stable and take lot of products. IMO its the reason tanks are so unbalanced these days.

I am doing a similar thing with not bringing over rock from my previous tank and starting with all dry rock.

I used Ocean Direct sand and which helped a ton, some of my previous tank's sand to get it started. I cycled most of the rocks for 2 months and used MB7.

I added a few late dry rocks which has a lot more algae than the cycled rocks. Diatoms has appeared recently (I don't think its dinos but maybe) and it looks like I'm getting it under control.

We have pretty good sources of bacteria, I will concede. Better than I had the last time I was at this stage.

Our tanks are lacking worms, feather dusters, star fish, pods, serpents, sponges, tunicates, macro algae’s, snails, barnacles and so many other cryptic organisms that I think really make the best of the best tanks.

A couple cups of junk from the bottom of the ocean, or cultured in someone’s tank would bring some much needed richness and stability.

Perhaps I don't understand your original inquiry.

Not sure about your area, but all of these are available at my LFS.

I’m not taking about ornamental species. I am talking about the cryptic species that go about their business without us every knowing about it.

And there's your answer

You guys are really saucy....

Clearly I don't have access to the ocean or someone else's established tank which is why in my original post I was looking for a commercial solution.

I don't think I am going to find any help here.