Hitchhikers in Live Rock Question for Article

[Seawitch]

Good Evening from pitch black Vancouver Island:

For a future R2R article, has anyone ever gotten an unusual and wonderful hitchhiker on live rock? Or something on it so terrible that you felt like lighting your hair on fire?

If so, let me know and tell me A) what kind of rock you had and B) where it came from. When I say where it came from, I don't mean the company, I mean "the ocean near Fiji" or "the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, TX".

Let's see if there's a pattern, so the more answers, the better.

Thank you kindly,
Seawitch

 

[mta_morrow]

Looking forward to the article! I hope you get plenty of useful responses.

 

[liverock]

Tons of life...this is REAL live rock! https://www.tbsaltwater.com/thepackage/organisms.html

 

[fish farmer]

I had various red macro algaes on some Gulf of Mexico live rock that were very hard to keep under control, it overtook my tank and was very difficult to remove as it would break apart while pulling and attach anywhere.

I did enjoy the tiny sea urchins that came on the same live rock, they didn't take care of the red macro algae though.

 

[EddieJ]

Gulf of Mexico of the west coast of Florida. Lots of beautiful porcelain crabs, mated pair of pistol shrimp, large red emerald crab, lots of urchins... My rock had very little algae..

Few predatory crabs, but they are easy enough to trap and remove..

 

[Subsea]

Both TBS.com & Gulf Live Rock have leases in 30’of water, 10 miles west of Tampa Bay. These two leases have been in operation since 1990 when > 100 tons of limestone was moved by rail then barged to location.

https://www.tbsaltwater.com/thepackage/index.html

http://www.gulfliverock.com/premium-decorative-rock.html


IMO, both of these vendors are true enviroental stewards of a dwindling resource. A thriving reef exist where before was an expanse of a bare sand bottom. There are less than 20 permits for haresting live rock in Florida. The state of Florida has banned new permits and will not renew existing permits so that when diver/owner dies, this source of real live rock will be gone.

This is what you can expect on real live rock.

“Premium Decorative Live Rock is our most popular rock. This rock will have thick coralline algae on it and a mixed variety of plants, animals, hard and soft corals, sponges and so much more. This type of rock has an enormous variety of animal and encrusting marine life.The shapes and sizes are extremely unique. This rock could contain multi-colored christmas tree worms, cup and tube corals, feather dusters, gorgonians, serpulid worms and encrusting clams.”

“This rock is fully blanketed with colorful coralline algae's, these algae's come in multitudes of fascinating shades of purple, reds, oranges, peaches and yellows. Most rocks contain bryzoans,orange leather sponge,gracilaria algae,halimeda, sea grapes, cluster corals, and cup corals. All of our premium decorative live rocks contain seeded plant life,both macro and micro algae.All pieces are hand collected fresh from our gulf lease site by our diving staff and shipped directly to our customers.We do not use any chemicals in our process. The rocks pictured are for example only. All of our premium decorative live rock is as good or better than the rocks pictured. This is Florida Aquacultured live rock.”

“All of our live rock comes from our personal Federal Aquaculture Lease site located 10 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. All of our rock was planted on the ocean floor in 1994. So you can image how much marine life has grown on it in over the last 25 years.”

I have had diver/owner send picture to me on the boat ride in at 10AM and receive rock before midnight in Austin.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I can't wait to setup my next tank and use some real live rock from one of the two above. I agree, doing good things for the hobby.

 

[azbigjohn]

A little off topic, but I wanted to say "Thank you" @Seawitch for all of the awesome and amazing articles you have been churning out for R2R lately! I love the support and referencing of the articles, as well as the way you are able to break topics down to digest...

I look forward to the Live Rock article. Unfortunately, I have lived in Phoenix AZ and now Las Cruces, NM, so, local "live rock" is usually just wet rocks, absolutely devoid of any exciting life! I lived vicariously through reading @d2mini 's previous build with the TBS "package" but sadly, that was out of the reefing budget for my tanks...

 

[Seawitch]

A little off topic, but I wanted to say "Thank you" @Seawitch for all of the awesome and amazing articles you have been churning out for R2R lately! I love the support and referencing of the articles, as well as the way you are able to break topics down to digest...

I look forward to the Live Rock article. Unfortunately, I have lived in Phoenix AZ and now Las Cruces, NM, so, local "live rock" is usually just wet rocks, absolutely devoid of any exciting life! I lived vicariously through reading @d2mini 's previous build with the TBS "package" but sadly, that was out of the reefing budget for my tanks...

Thank you, azbigjohn. I'm writing as fast as I can.

 

[Foothill Corals]

I ordered 10lbs of LR from KP Aquatics this summer and ended up with more than a dozen Bobbit worms (and a bad Isopod). I saw a large Bobbit in the bottom of the box when I opened it, then saw another so I broke open one of the rocks and several small ones fell out. I just wanted to seed my dry rock, I ended up just tossing out all the LR, not worth it.

 

[Seawitch]

I ordered 10lbs of LR from KP Aquatics this summer and ended up with more than a dozen Bobbit worms (and a bad Isopod). I saw a large Bobbit in the bottom of the box when I opened it, then saw another so I broke open one of the rocks and several small ones fell out. I just wanted to seed my dry rock, I ended up just tossing out all the LR, not worth it.

Oh dear. That sounds terrible!

 

[ca1ore]

Most of my live rock came fresh out of Florida in the late 1980's. Loads of cool stuff - worms, a few mantis shrimp and even a common octopus. Since then I've bought either dry or rock from reefers closing down tanks. I tend to 'under rock' my tanks, preferring an open aesthetic, so as my tanks have grown my rock requirements have not (well, not as much)

 

[Seawitch]

Most of my live rock came fresh out of Florida in the late 1980's. Loads of cool stuff - worms, a few mantis shrimp and even a common octopus. Since then I've bought either dry or rock from reefers closing down tanks.

What did you do with the octopus?

 

[ca1ore]

I kept it. One of the more fun animals I've had. Hard to keep in a tank though, so it ultimately dried up on the floor. Glad it wasn't a blue ring though (they don't live in florida I don't think) otherwise papa would be dead papa.

 

[AlexG]

@Seawitch the bioluminescent organisms that live in my aquarium system mostly came in on the live rock and live sand. I discuss the bioluminescent organisms in my system in the articles linked below. My live rock and live sand came from the gulf of mexico.

Bioluminescence article links:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reefing-after-dark-–-bioluminescence-in-the-reef-aquarium.338847/
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...bioluminescence-observations-research.467493/

Other hitchhikers that I value from my live rock and sand in my system:

• Mysid Shrimp
• Limpet snails
• Ostracods
• copepods
• amphipods
• isopods
• worms
• unidentified pods
• brittle stars
• macro algaes

 

[Seawitch]

@Seawitch the bioluminescent organisms that live in my aquarium system mostly came in on the live rock and live sand. I discuss the bioluminescent organisms in my system in the articles linked below. My live rock and live sand came from the gulf of mexico.

Bioluminescence article links:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reefing-after-dark-–-bioluminescence-in-the-reef-aquarium.338847/
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...bioluminescence-observations-research.467493/

Other hitchhikers that I value from my live rock and sand in my system:

• Mysid Shrimp
• Limpet snails
• Ostracods
• copepods
• amphipods
• isopods
• worms
• unidentified pods
• brittle stars
• macro algaes

Thank you for telling me this. I did actually read your articles. It was one of the first things I did when I got here at R2R. That's really interesting.

 

[Seawitch]

A little off topic, but I wanted to say "Thank you" @Seawitch for all of the awesome and amazing articles you have been churning out for R2R lately! I love the support and referencing of the articles, as well as the way you are able to break topics down to digest...

I look forward to the Live Rock article. Unfortunately, I have lived in Phoenix AZ and now Las Cruces, NM, so, local "live rock" is usually just wet rocks, absolutely devoid of any exciting life! I lived vicariously through reading @d2mini 's previous build with the TBS "package" but sadly, that was out of the reefing budget for my tanks...

Thank you @azbigjohn. I appreciate the kind words. Just finishing this article right now.

 

[saltyhog]

Gulf of Mexico (Tampa Bay Saltwater rock)

Good: feather dusters, cup corals, porcelain crab, rock boring urchins, pistol shrimp, corraline algae, yellow and orange sponges

Bad: eucinid worm, polyclad flatworm, gorilla crabs, whelk, nudibranch

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Bump!

 

[Subsea]

I have had live clams and numerous colorful Bryozoans > 5 years still attached to original live rock. One other observation before you go to press. Once while aquascaping, its the only thing we do that’s free in this hobby, I witnessed a gorgeous growth of Red Grapes & on a seperate occasion Dragons Breath. The trigger was exposure to light and a healthy ecosystem.

I consider mature GOM uncured live rock much more interestig than manicured SPS tanks. For me, a fishless display with cool inverts like shrimps & craby things with no coral is “the bomb”.