LiveRockNReef or TBS? Anyone ordered recently and how was it?

[Charles4400]

Planning out my live rock order. I believe these two are the main contenders out there.

The deco premium (FL rock) and gmp rock look pretty good from liverocknreef.

But ive also heard great things about TBS and their FL live rock. (Do they even carry rock from fiji or elsewhere?).

Im looking for rock with lots of life. I personally like hidden hitchhikers and some crabs and mantis shrimp to me make things more interesting. Bristleworms are also my friends! And bring on the macro algae, ill remove it myself if I dont like it. I'm not a completely sterile type reefer who enjoys starting with all dry rock ( I dont mind interesting dry rock mixed in with live though, all good in my book!) No offense to teh dry rock reefers out there, I get it, but personally Im pretty intrigued by all the tiny life that great live rock has.

That being said help me decide which to buy from. Will probably be getting abou 125-150lbs.

Has anyone bought from any of the above recently? What did you get, how much (#s) and how did it turn out? Read some reviews but many are from years ago, not recent. Wondering how the hurricane may have affected the rocks if at all.

Thx!

 

[Orm Embar]

I bought all of my live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater. Excellent rock, lots of life, and lots of extras with "the package". My biggest problem was that I felt rushed (never a good thing) and didn't do as good a job as I would have liked at getting more of the gorilla crabs out of the rock before putting it in the tank. For the record, club soda (seltzer) works really well if you pour it into holes and such (they really don't like that!).

I would certainly do it again. I would also time it so that I had a full day to relax and be more thorough about crabs.

 

[Charles4400]

How were the shapes of the rock? And when did you order?

I dont get too worried about hitchiker crabs. If they cause trouble then I remove them, so far ive had pretty good luck with hitchiker crabs. One of the coolest specimens Ive had in a previous tank was a crab completely covered with hair, I think it might have been a teddy bear crab? Never bothered anything and I would feed it directly with tongs in front of its hole. Maybe I got lucky, but that was a cool crab!

But if a gorilla crab causing trouble then of course get him out. The shrimp at the bottom of glass jar/cup works well.

 

[Orm Embar]

I've lost track of the number of times I've tried the "shrimp in the glass" trick . . . I catch lots of hermits that way, but very, very few gorillas.

Shapes were nicely diverse.

I ordered last February (8 months ago roughly).

 

[kashman100]

My rock from TBS had tons of life. I bought 60 lbs. Probably 15 sea urchin, tons of snails, porcelain crabs, limpets, gorilla crabs, tons of barnacles, tunicates, feather dusters, tons of sponges, polyclad flatworms, various other worms, pistol shrimp and a couple mantis shrimp to name some of the life. I removed a ton of gorilla crabs by holding a krill with long tweezers and grabbing them when they tried to grab the krill. I didnt mind the "bad" hitchhikers and removed them easily. I just liked checking out all the different creatures. Especially after the lights went off

 

[Charles4400]

Nice! Great to hear!
When did you get your rock from them?

Is the FL rock very super dense? Does it have many caverns, caves and holes in them? I had a mix of various types of fiji and other very porous rock from back in the day. I've never held FL rock in my hand before. How does it compare?

 

[BoomCorals]

I used TBS before. Was a great experience.

 

[kashman100]

Been about 8 months ago. The rock pretty light for its size and all peices have holes and caves in it. When you order just tell him aquarium size and area you are trying to fill and what kind of look your going for and he will customize it for you

 

[AlexG]

I recently got an order of live rock from the gulf of Mexico. My LFS ordered the rock and live sand I purchased but it is really nice. Here are couple of pictures of the macro algae growth. All of my lr is in a refuge tank so there won't be any fish eating the algae.