Question about buying live rock from LFS?

Mjc092 · Apr 14, 2017

First off I am new to this forum and would like to say hello to everybody. I just sort of finished getting my 40g tank up and running. The stand still has a lot of work to be done and protein skimmer is in mid production.

Just a little history I had a salt fish only tank 10 years ago and threw out all of my beautiful equipment when I got out of the hobby. Literally trashed hundreds of dollars in pumps/skimmers/tanks just because I swore I "never" would get back into the hobby and just did not like storing all of the equipment. So now I am doing everything DIY, other than buying a already made tank I am making the lights, skimmer, and sump.

So now just 15 minutes ago I purchased my first live rock in over 10 years at my LFS. The person seemed to know what they were doing at first but she put water in the bag with the rock. I politely asked her not to because I live 5 min away and it was fine. But she refused to take the water out of the bag. This fish shop has a 50% off sale on the live rock for the weekend and I thought I would get a great deal until I ended up paying the difference for water. Is this normal? Ps the rock is now $4.49 lb and looks nice with some color on it.

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 14, 2017

No, she shouldn't charge for water.

moseley75 · Apr 14, 2017

She shouldn't have weighed the water with the rock.

Michael Cronmiller · Apr 14, 2017

Absolutely should have charged water weight, that's bs

brandon429 · Apr 14, 2017

yes it was a ripoff weights and measures move, but she just saved you having to cycle the rock its worth it just pay

live rock transported home wet from the pet store is the same live rock it was at the pet store, skip cycle. we advise to bring home live rock wet in bags and make them put the water in it even if they don't want to lol, but we never assumed they'd weigh it that way

Michael Cronmiller · Apr 14, 2017

At my LFS I pick out rock and weigh it myself bag it and tell what them how much.

Mjc092 · Apr 14, 2017

Wow I didn't except this much response. Thank you for the feedback. I live right around the corner from this shop and even told her that. She said the rock would die without the water. I almost joked and said it's not a fish but I'm already over it. I'm just happy to have some rock in my tank and helping out a LFS is important to me. I might buy some more rock again and see what they do.
Next question is this good rock? I have seen a few YouTube videos and the rock has lots of "stuff" all over it, even some zoas/random coral. Mine looks like dry rock. Your thoughts?

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 14, 2017

Its likely not fully cycled yet,was dry and has been curing in their tank.

brandon429 · Apr 15, 2017

Agreed if it's LR, it's very recently cured

Here's no doubt live rock from lfs where coralline is prominent

Jisko · Apr 15, 2017

yeah my LFS attempts to sell "live rock" when in reality its the most solid hunks of rock I've ever seen haha

btw that coral doesn't look very happy :[

Pedr · Apr 15, 2017

Sorry to hear about them charging you for water with your live rock. I've never had a LFS do that.

Mjc092 · Apr 15, 2017

That's some nice rock! There is a big fish store about 45 min away that sells several different types of live rock that looks amazing. The prices for are around 3-4 times the price. I'm in central NJ. Anyone live around here that has suggestions on where to find some decent priced nice live rock?

JamesP · Apr 15, 2017

Some would argue diversity is a good thing, but im to the point where id prefer to start dry and know exactly what is in the tank. Diversity includes good things but also aiptasia and lots of other things I really dont ever want to get in my tank. I nuked my dt and started over to finally kill all of the baddies i couldnt get out any other way. This time im super paranoid and careful.

KyleC. · Apr 15, 2017

After my current experience with LFS LR, and ignorance on my part, I will be ordering "dry" rock from BRS, and currently starting a new tank from the beginning. Never again will I trust an LFS, or not google much more than I did.

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 15, 2017

JamesP said:
Some would argue diversity is a good thing, but im to the point where id prefer to start dry and know exactly what is in the tank. Diversity includes good things but also aiptasia and lots of other things I really dont ever want to get in my tank. I nuked my dt and started over to finally kill all of the baddies i couldnt get out any other way. This time im super paranoid and careful.

KyleC. said:
After my current experience with LFS LR, and ignorance on my part, I will be ordering "dry" rock from BRS, and currently starting a new tank from the beginning. Never again will I trust an LFS, or not google much more than I did.

A bit of lost lore is how exactly to deal with live rock.
Yea if you just dump live rock in your tank it may cause problembs. If treated correctly it still has advantages over a dry rock cycle.

If you dump dry rock in the tank and add bacteria as is the current trend you'll have problembs too. Most put a fish in after 30days or zero ammonia.

May I say, hahahahaha oh hahaha.bahahaha. Asking for trouble.

Myself after several years of r2r I'd never ever ever do that. Ever. I fix and assist more tanks like that than Aptasia or calm people down if they see a harmless brown flatworms or free CUC like bristle worms.

IMO curing your rock correctly and cleaning LR correctly takes exactly the same amount of time and there's more advantages to established LR in the same amount of time.

Both methods btw take about 30 days.

moseley75 · Apr 16, 2017

I have been getting all the pieces together to start up a new 28 gal cube. I was planning on using some dry base rock along w/ some live rock and putting some marine life in the sump so I don't have to fill the tank up w/ rock. Can I cure all of this in one bucket? Also is there any reason I can't allow it all to stay in the curing bucket longer than 30 days.

moseley75 · Apr 16, 2017

That should have said - along w/ some marine pure.

Tautog · Apr 16, 2017

When I started, I got dark purple Coraline growing completely in entire rock. My tank never cycled.
Find another store, that girl is new or dumb. Paying for water was your first key sign to leave the store. Live Rock with NO Coraline was your second sign to leave the store. I walk in a lot of stores, and walk out faster if I don't see positive signs. If your remotely located, can't find a good store, drive a few hours. Pete, at Brooklyn Zoo, it's a local pet store, has great stuff. He made things simple for me. His sister is always at the store, she's a pit bull, and she doesn't take **** from anyone, a sweetheart, but it's Brooklyn baby.
Bulk Reef Supply has Live/Dry rock. I have some, great stuff, cure it per their instructions, you will not be disappointed either way.
Welcome back to the hobby, and Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Mjc092 · Apr 16, 2017

So question about cyling my tank. I know this topic has been discussed numerous times but I can't decide on which way is best. First question, did I make a huge mistake by not cleaning the rock before putting it in my tank? My last tank I put the rock straight in the tank and never had a problem. I also didn't keep coral just fish and inverts. This was also back 10 years ago and I am finding everything has changed in 10 years.

Second question and most important is what should I do with my lights??? Keep on, turn off? I just don't get what the point is of depriving my beautiful rock of the light? If I didn't see aptasia on the rock in the store does that mean it could still be on it? I see little hair looking things on the rock, could that be aptasia?

brandon429 · Apr 17, 2017

If the little hair things are biological in origin, as in living algae, those signify your rock is cycled because it takes longer for anything living to anchor to your rocks than it does for nitrifying bacteria to set in

Same for coralline, it's the number one indicator of cycled rock in situations where no meds are used and in instances where it's real coralline vs painted. There's ways of verifying that too..asking lfs is one, and another is that rocks which are 100% perfect looking with coralline with no bleached areas can be suspect. Real coralline rock like shown above has areas of white where it died back on the edges. Two brands of rocks that are fake coralline are real reef rock, and liferock by caribsea.

It's possible to have rock that was once live, then dried, then rehydrated for a short period (too short to be cycled) and then whisps of dead algae are floating in the water. It won't be green it'll be clear or a color indicating rehydrated formerly dead materials. If the algae is green, or showed up in new spots it didn't used to be, or if you can just tell it's alive, then you have cycled rock. Benthic confirming organisms usually come in plurals...there is usually more than one life form on good live rock to help verify.

Use lights if you want. It's reco not to because they fuel algae where no corals are there to need the light. Have an algae plan independent of all factors that may cause it, such as the willingness to keep removing algae if needed, and then algae won't matter.

The pictures you posted don't show obvious benthic life forms although you may be able to see some up close. Post number six from this thread is the way you test rocks to see if they're cycled, as it's completely easy to have fully cycled rocks with no life obvious on them, for example if they were cycled in dark vats or buckets.
You will know if you need to cycle after running the test below from post number six
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/