I love my live rock and sand from TBS (
@LiverockRocks ) that I got for my new office nano and rescaping my CaribSea LifeRock (Great for growing GHA!!!) home nano. My office nano which just has premium LR and live sand is full of living things. Some of the sponges faded away, but others are growing quite a bit (a shaded one has taken off). Numerous little dusters that are still alive about a month later. Micro brittle star legs everywhere. Spaghetti worms out in the evening cleaning up the rocks.
RE: hitchhikers, I gave the sand a good sift before adding it scoop at a time. Some worms got through, but that's fine. Rocks thoroughly inspected with gloved hands. One gorilla crab removed from 15lb nano premium. There was a tiny tiny white crab that snuck into my home nano, but perhaps it is a good one. One mystery shrimp that may be a pistol--seeing some rescaping of the sand bed so suspect that is true. I found one isopod in the sand, which made me freak out, and I've had an eye on my clowns ever since. Not seen any latching to them so far--and further inspection, the eyes are farther apart, so likely a spheromatid isopod (detritovore) instead of a cirolanid isopod (parasitic). The biggest concern I have right now is one eunicid worm in my office nano and one in my home nano. Maybe not the bad kind, but going to try a bottle trap soon, because I'd like to get it out before I put in a tailspot blenny and firefish.
Difference between this tank and my home nano with dry rock is huge. So much work getting through the uglies in the home tank and making many errors along the way. I removed two of the big GHA-covered dry rocks and replaced with 3 nano premium live rocks a month ago, and the GHA has yet to grow on the live rocks and is actually receding from the dry rocks (I added more snails, so could be that too). If you can catch the pests, I'd say that's 100% preferable to spending hours with a toothbrush on your GHA-covered rocks.
1 month later
cool: ) a bristle worm or two...
