Ordering live rock

[zeroeffect]

I got my first shipment of live cured rock today and I was wanting to know if anyone might have a good site I can order more from. I payed about $100.00 for 50 pounds. It ver nice looking rock and very heavy.

Just trying to figure out if I should keep buying from the lfs or if I would find it cheaper at other places.

[iamwrasseman]

thats $2 a pound which is very reasonable .if you like the rock i would get it from the lfs . if you purchase online you will also have to pay shipping

[zeroeffect]

well that sounds like a winner to me. Thanks for the info. I was more than likely going to go back to them anyways after looking at some of the prices online.

Let me ask another question. How long will it take for my cured rock to start changing over to live rock? I heard anywhere from 1 to 4 years. is this true?

[iamwrasseman]

your rock that you have purchased is live right now if it was shipped and stored properly .1 to 4 years is way to long as if you were to set up a tank with it and put in a couple fish to cycle it within a few months you will be done with a complete cycle and at that point all the rock is pretty much live and that is what will be the micro bacterial cleaner for your tank .

[zeroeffect]

Well let me tell you where I'm at. I don't have my tank ready for water yet we are having to build my tank stand up a few inches so that we will have room to put everthing under the stand and have working room.

We have the salt/sand and just got the rock and we have the equipment in that we need to get the tank started now. We will be putting it all togeather this weekend sometime.

So when we start adding everything salt/sand/rock/water should we do anything else. You said something about fish in your last post. Should we add two or three fish also?

Also we don't have lighting yet we were told we could wait until the tank has cycled but we do have three lights that came with the tank just your standard lighting should we set them up you think?

The tank is 125gal and it is going to have coral and fish.

[iamwrasseman]

the tank can be dark but you will enjoy it more if you put the cheap lights on top temporally .get the sand rock and water in your tank and get the salinity correct at 1.026 then the heater and your sump with skimmer and what ever you have should all be hooked up .get the tank temp stabilized and wait a week and then get a real cheap damsel of something like that and put him in there . do not over feed and then start testing until your tank goes through a cycle . then you can begin stocking your tank . good luck to you too !

[muttley000]

Please consider not using a live fish to cycle, you will be poisoning it and possibly killing it. Nearly drowning something in it's own waste doesn't seem like a good way to treat a "pet" to me! Just put a raw shrimp in the tank, or a small pinch of food every couple of days, and test for ammonia. You will see it spike in a few days and return to zero in a couple of weeks. A much better way to cycle IMO.

[jeepguy242]

if you got rock shipped to you it will have some dye off anyhow... that will be enough to start your cycle