best live rock online?

[jeremymcm]

so i previously used liveaquaria to puchase my liverock online and am debating on using them again or surfing craigslist for a while when i finally get my tank but I was wondering if anyone has used any other site to purchase LR and got some amazing pieces. i started browsing thru the sponsors but there are so many and a few of them that i noticed had LR were mostly the eco kind and i want natural LR....Thanks!

[The Velvet Sea]

What are you looking for? Cured or raw? Value or quality?

I bought a drop-shipped box of raw rock from Dr. Mac http://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com/ once before and it was great. Not sure if they have that deal anymore though.

[jeremymcm]

i am looking for cured and good quality at good value... i looked at that one previously but they don't have regular live rock anymore, now it's "Real Reef Rock" patent pending and it's pricey for fake live rock

[wbdevers]

I bought some rock from Dale at http://www.gulf-view.com/ and it was PHENOMENAL. I hate "sterile" live rock. To me the whole point is to be alive and that includes maybe some corals, sponges, macros, crustaceans, bi-valves etc. Dale pulls his rock, packs it and ships it. He has an aquaculture business in Tampa Bay. Not sure where you are located, but I would DEFO recommend next day air. Costs more but worth it. I did 2nd day and even though I had some die off which caused a spike, the rock was great, Dale was extremely nice and helpful. Basically you place the order on line, then he personally calls you and goes over what you have ordered and confirms the price and details. Great guy. Good luck.

W

[SushiGirl]

I just bought 15 lbs of pre-cured Vanuatu rock from vividaquariums.com to supplement my old, dry Vanuatu from years ago. I told them that I already had large show pieces & just wanted smaller nice pieces to supplement with & rubble for my sump. They picked out some great branchy rocks for me with green, purple, pink, and red coralline. Ordered very late Friday night, delivered Wednesday. Very responsive and have a great selection of other rock to choose from. It was the only place I could find to get a small order of rock, but they have large orders as well. And the pics they have don't do it justice AT ALL, fortunately I knew going in that it was gorgeous rock & I wasn't wrong!

[jeremymcm]

thanks! the gulf-view ones looked amazing, and sushi girl ur right, the vivid ones didn't photo too well.... do you have any pics of ur tank with the new pieces in?

[SushiGirl]

I just took some pics this morning before I stirred crap all up trying to get them placed. I hate moving rock in a 55!
Let me get them downloaded & I'll post. It's not as nice as my first 75 lbs back in 2002, but I didn't have a camera back then. I do have lots of pics of my old tank tho, so I can post some of those too.

[SushiGirl]

I don't think my pics are going to do it justice either, but here ya go.
It won't link in pics from Flickr, and they'd be tiny if I upload keeping to the little limit here, so here's the link to my 55 page. Not much but rock in there LOL.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9924854...th/5065140586/

[jeremymcm]

thanks sushigirl, tank is lookin good. can't wait to finally get mine going!

[SushiGirl]

Thanks Jeremy. I just took some pics with the flash, wow, what a difference! Now you can actually see all the colors!

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OK, I still don't know why these show up as links & not actual pics. I don't have this prob on other forums...oh well, you'll have to click!

[SushiGirl]

More

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[SushiGirl]

The entire tank. Most of the pieces are very large, those are from my old Vanuatu.
And yes, it's a wall, but Vanuatu is very light so it's impossible not to have a 75+ lb rock wall in a 55, even banishing 4 or 5 pieces to the sump LOL.

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[Dustin1300]

I personally don't want to risk buying anymore live rock in my reef. In the future on a bigger build I plan on using dry BRS Reef Saver which will get seeded by the 100 pounds of live premium rock I already have

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/...-eco-rock.html

[SushiGirl]

Well, I had 3 choices to seed my dry rock. Get pieces from an LFS with THEIR bad hitchhikers (I've only found one LFS out of a dozen in the area that didn't have aiptasia and hair & bubble algae, and no coralline at all), get it from a local reefer (who I see complaining about all the bad hitchhikers they got from the LFS and/or each other), or order some. I didn't want Florida rock because the hitchhikers are notorious (aiptasia, "bad" algae, pistol shrimp, mantis, etc.). So I chose to get pre-cured rock that's been treated for hitchhikers from an area I'd gotten rock from before.

I had some very interesting hitchhikers in my first round of Vanuatu rock, the worst being only hydroid jellyfish which went away after a month...and those were awesome for that month LOL. Everything else was beneficial (peanut worms, bristle worms, brittle stars, pods, tunicates, sponges, and clams). That rock wasn't pre-cured in any way. So far, not a single thing has come out of this rock, but we keep hoping heheheh. If I could have, I would have gotten this particular rock not treated at all again.

[jeremymcm]

Yeah the flash helped immensely lol... i think i'll still get a 45 lb box of figi from liveaquaria but i like vivids small order option so i will get 15lbs of the indonesian as well and living in az i don't imagine the shipping being too bad. Thanks all!

[SushiGirl]

I'm in Texas, the price shown included shipping. They do have a great selection besides the stuff I got! I really liked the fact that I could get something under 40 lbs.

[wbdevers]

Here is what my tank looks like atm. The rock with all of the stuff came from gulf-view. The super bright purple came from my LFS as well as the lower less colorful stuff. Granted I'm in the middle of the notorius "algae phase" of my tank but my rock from Dale has spnges, a couple of corals, macro algaes (halimeda for one) feather dusters etc. I did have about 8 aptasia but I lemon juiced them and they are no more.







You can see one of the former aptasia in this one.

[jeremymcm]

Ur tank looks great! I wuz thinkin about it originally but i wuz gonna want some of the decorator rock as well but i won't have my lights till after it cures and im not sure how long all that would last without

[wbdevers]

Thanks! I'm fighting GHA and cyano atm, but so it goes. I ordered the 30
# box of the prem coralline and then added 4-5#'s of the deco to make the order over $100. The orange sponge as well as several mussels of some sort came on the deco. They only open very little, but the biggest is about 5 inches long.

I will get yelled at about this , but I didn't cure mine. Dale collects the rock and then ships it. I'm not sure if he gets all of his orders, jumps in his boat, collects then ships or if he collects and stores on shore in tanks. I got it 2nd day and while I did have some die off, my spike only lasted 2 days and then everything dropped back to what it was prior. Looking back though I wish I had done next day air. I would have saved even more stuff especially the coarls and sponges. Unless I mistaken, the only thing that will need lights will be any macro algaes. Nothing else is truly light dependent. Coralline is fine in low light. Just remember that the min order is $100.