AltitudeAquarium
Active Member
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The new owners of Tampa Bay Live Rock put some Walt Smith Rock in the harvest permit area. Check that out as an option.
Real ocean rock .
- Thread starter LOVEROCK
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tautog83
Valuable Member
I thought the actual Florida rock itself was not that porous ..I mean its not the worst . What do you think they are dropping off the boats to let the rock sit in the ocean ? They arent harvesting live ocean rock and moving it lol. As far porosity and aesthetics its meh. Caribsea is concrete and basically has no nooks in it . Just my opinion . What I meant by the vat thing was I'd take down my tank and my marine pure blocks and use my 80 pounds of live rock and use it to seed the 200 lbs I'd sell you for $35a lb lol 3 months all that rock would be covered in all the right stuff especially from 80 pounds of 3 year old rock .
Rmckoy
7500 Club Member
When I started reefing for some weird reason . Any closing tank I found on buy and sell sites I bought the rocks .
I have close to 600lbs of rocks in storage .
currently using only about 200 lbs in my current system .
Knowing to buy it from anywhere it would cost $10-$20 lb .
especially in Canada there isn’t many options to harvest rocks .
even though they are now dry ,
I can soak them in my sump for a few months at any time to become live again
I have close to 600lbs of rocks in storage .
currently using only about 200 lbs in my current system .
Knowing to buy it from anywhere it would cost $10-$20 lb .
especially in Canada there isn’t many options to harvest rocks .
even though they are now dry ,
I can soak them in my sump for a few months at any time to become live again
MaxTremors
2500 Club Member
Because the rubble zone on the edges of reefs is its own ecosystem that is comprised of most live rock. Removing the rock can devastate this ecosystem. It is somewhat of a renewable resource, but it was massively over harvested in the 90s and early 2000s. Most live rock collected today is mined aragonite/ancient coral rock that was dumped into the ocean (some over 20 years ago) on plots leased from the government.
KevyKevTPA
Community Member
Well, I guess I'm glad we got our "real" live rock back in the day. It was "dead" when we put the tank up again, of course, because it spent several years in Home Depot buckets, but one piece of aquacultured live rock, plus live sand, and it came back quickly. We've since added a piece of "dry" rock that made a big arch and let us rearrange for a lot of hiding spaces/caves/holes/etc., but from what I've been reading, real live rock is the way to go. We're within driving distance to Tampa Bay Saltwater, so that will help when the day comes that we upgrade the tank.
X-37B
Fight The Good Fight
This is what I currently do. I look for live or dead live rock at 2 lfs that take in broken down tanks.
I put the pieces in my frag systems sump to get the bacteria and move a piece at a time to the display. Within a few months they are covered in coralline.
I have attempted to get one store to setup a 300 gallon trough and get 100lbs of live and cycle dead live rock to make the dead live rock come alive again.
tautog83
Valuable Member
^ those are exactly the points im trying to make , if we used some of the bio media like marine pure or bright well from older established tanks and put them in a rubbermaid for a couple weeks that dry rock would have a better start . I'm no way saying it's an equal comparison in terms of having rock sit on the bottom of the ocean for a year but it's about introducing that biodiversity so those dry rocks . So yea in a couple weeks the bacteria living on those blocks wont colonize all the rock but let's face it you're going to get something and thsts better than nothing . Also if you have time on your hands or a new system I feel like this could help with a lot of the dry rock struggles .
GlassMunky
2500 Club Member
After 6 months you still wouldn’t be close
GlassMunky
2500 Club Member
I was looking into them, their pricing seems decent $6.50/lb + air freight
But I haven’t heard of anyone, personally, who have used them.
I found the gulf live rock to be boulders but the KPA rock was excellent in terms of shape and pores.
Yep. KP was quite porous (larger pores than Fiji) My build thread should have some pics. I haven’t had TBS or Gulfliverrock to compare it.
Supa
Well-Known Member
He is correct though after 6 months the rocks wouldn’t be no where close to supporting live like the gulf rock and other live rock. I did message Them and ask for pics of the gulf rock they have currently and it looks great
tautog83
Valuable Member
I didnt say its exact same thing, it's about trying to help create biodiversity in dry rock which is why we buy live rock .yea it would take longer but it's a step towards that direction for people that dont want to spend that kind of money and avoid hitchhikers .
