Good live rock

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by 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.

Ben

How expensive?

[fishytime]

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

[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.

[untamed]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.