Vendors! Take care of the live rock!!!

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Red Coral Aquariums

I do now agree all sellers of live rock should thrive to keep it in an environment that allows beneficial bacteria, pods, etc. to thrive. That said heaters, skimmers, and clean water are an essential.
One thing I do not agree with is Lighting on LR for resale in my care. My goal is to sell live rock that adds benefit to your tank immediately without adding ammonia. All die off will have already been processed. General fish systems with new fish arrivals is NOT a good place to store LR for customer sales.

Kevin

Kevin I wish more stores had your attitude for rock.. lighting is definatly not a good thing in new rock and should only be added well after all the algae and plants are gone. I know some people seam to like the leaf algae on there rock but personaly when I buy rock I want it clean with lots of bugs and a coraline, no mushrooms, ext.. and I donot believe it should be in tanks with fish at all, some places use tangs to hide algae on rocks.. the tangs keep it looking clean but the algar roots are there and when you get it home it goes nuts.

I think my ideal rock system would be three seperat systems. rock would come in to store and go to a back room system not available for sale. this system would be heated, tones of water flow and have major skimming but be in total darkness. I would probably leave it in this system for 2 months. from here it would go into a system with the same equipment but lit by actinic lighting only for another month and then finaly into the sale tanks. but I know this isn't reasonable for a lot of stores as they have to justify the cost per square foot and arn't willing to invest say 2 to 3K in rock they won't be able to sell for 3 months or even lay out the money to set up 3 different systems for one purpose.

Steve