300,000 pounds of live rock stolen in Florida

poor dude!

that has to suck, but how did someone steal 300,000 pounds of live rock? `at 20 feet deep, did some people come with a fleet of boats and free dive down, for every single rock?
 
Well a few things don't add up, to me at least. Maybe with a little explanation, I could understand.


1. He can only sell the amount of LR that the vat's on the boat hold. So, in 1.5 years, he has only made 1 trip out there? Either those vats hold tens of thousands of pounds, or he isn't selling any of this rock.

2. If he invested 600,000 pounds of this stuff, and makes one trip out there every 1.5 years, don't you think this LR will be around for ever? I mean he surely couldn't sell it all in his lifetime or his childs lifetime at this pace.


"t takes a team of three or four three hours to bring up 1,500 pounds"

So, in order to bring up 300,000lbs of this stuff, it would take 800 man hours to do, by my calculations. ASSUMING you can work 6 hours, every day, it would take them 133.3 days to collect it all. So in theory, it's possible. However with the FL weather, there's no way you can be out there collecting LR every single day, let alone 6hrs a day, for 133.3 days.


Somethings not right here...

EDIT:

Unless a huge crew of about 25-50 harvested the rock. And if they did, and they decide to sell it, the reef community will be aware, as their likely to be selling this stuff for $.50/lb or so to get rid of it quick, UNLESS they have ginormous holding tanks for 300klbs of LR.
 
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He invested 300K lbs not 600K. The guy that commented about 600k lbs was giving an example from his experience while working for another LR aquaculturer. That guy was trying to point out that when you place something heavy (say 600K lbs of LR) on the ocean floor, that around half of it will sink into the sandbed which makes sense to me.

I do though smell something fishy about this........oh wait...that is my skimmate lol.
 
I also wonder about the possibility that all the hurricanes that happened last year might have covered them up.
 
LOL... "oh wait, Im sorry. It WASN"T stolen. I just didn't look for it very well."

If it was in 20ft, it would certainly be affected by storms and currents and stuff.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15211005#post15211005 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jefathome
LOL... "oh wait, Im sorry. It WASN"T stolen. I just didn't look for it very well."

If it was in 20ft, it would certainly be affected by storms and currents and stuff.
Click to expand...

would it realy? even though it was close to 3 miles away from the shore? in florida we have a reay long continental shelf, would that allow for less storm damage?

i am actualy currious, it seems like he would be realy REALY stupid to put the rock in a place where a strom could damage it, where hurricanes are common. lol

now, it would also take someone pretty stupid to loose 300k lbs of rock lol
 
Not stupid...but....

Not stupid...but....

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15211847#post15211847 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ctenophors rule
would it realy? even though it was close to 3 miles away from the shore? in florida we have a reay long continental shelf, would that allow for less storm damage?

i am actualy currious, it seems like he would be realy REALY stupid to put the rock in a place where a strom could damage it, where hurricanes are common. lol

now, it would also take someone pretty stupid to loose 300k lbs of rock lol
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the site process includes language that prohibits any life within the proposed lease area. This places sites in less than ideal areas.

My site is in the sand, behind the reef, about a mile up from this site and has been challenging to say the least since I placed rock there many years ago.

Richard TBS
 
i new that about the site processing (i was looking into that at a time), but to think that the waves from a hurricane could do that much damage in 20 feet of water! i heard that these waves were longer than deep, and since they dont look ofly long when they hit the coast....but then theirs always the compression and friction i didn't account for.

if he knew the place was a bad place for live rock farming, why didn't he look into it more often, after all it is his " whole lively hood"

would he still be complaining if he lost it all to a storm? or did he, and is he hoping to collect insurance? or am i rambling.......? fishy.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15212518#post15212518 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ctenophors rule
i new that about the site processing (i was looking into that at a time), but to think that the waves from a hurricane could do that much damage in 20 feet of water! i heard that these waves were longer than deep, and since they dont look ofly long when they hit the coast....but then theirs always the compression and friction i didn't account for.

if he knew the place was a bad place for live rock farming, why didn't he look into it more often, after all it is his " whole lively hood"

would he still be complaining if he lost it all to a storm? or did he, and is he hoping to collect insurance? or am i rambling.......? fishy.
Click to expand...

There was no "insurance" on the LR, according to the article, so I'm not totally sure what he's trying to gain here... :confused:
 
When a site is surrounded by other coral aquaculture suites where the others site leasors all ready have the equipment to collect the rock and the outlets to sell the rock is there really a lot of question as to where the rock went. It is even more likely that most of it has not even been brought to shore but just got moved to a/the competitors sites surrounding his.

He can recoup the majority of his losses just selling the "rubble" live rock that is left. It is a shame that others would take advantage of the situation, but it surely is not surprising. When you leave a huge amount of a product laying on the ocean floor for over a year without checking on it you are not the wisest business man around. I am quite certain the person that stole it was quite aware that it was merely a class three felony if he got caught.

Heck, possession of marijuana in most states is a class C or otherwise known as a class three felony. That is a very light potential cost to pay for a million dollars worth of a readily saleable and untraceable product. That is something like a maximum of 5 years (usually two years) or only 40 months (or 16 months on two years) after mandatory early release for good time. For a million dollars or more. How many of us make over 250 thousand dollars a year tax free.

Duh, I wonder why it disappeared? As far as it being a huge loss to him, he is a captain for TowBoat U.S. and is far from hurting considering what he makes from his regular jog as a commercial tow boat / tug boat captain. He likely lost less than a years pay in his investments if he just walks away from the whole situation and just abandons the whole project and his equipment etc.

As for storm losses, it is obvious if the other sites surrounding his were also buried tere would be no investigation ointo theft or any newspaper artivcles on theft butinstead at most an article on all the operators losing their rock to storms. There are only a few sites where live rock aquaculyure is being done and the leases at the different sites are all side by side not spread out. There was a site that was totally destroyed by storms years ago but all the leases at the site lost their rock not one person.
 
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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15214067#post15214067 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by therealfatman
When a site is surrounded by other coral aquaculture suites where the others site leasors all ready have the equipment to collect the rock and the outlets to sell the rock is there really a lot of question as to where the rock went. It is even more likely that most of it has not even been brought to shore but just got moved to a/the competitors sites surrounding his.

He can recoup the majority of his losses just selling the "rubble" live rock that is left. It is a shame that others would take advantage of the situation, but it surely is not surprising. When you leave a huge amount of a product laying on the ocean floor for over a year without checking on it you are not the wisest business man around. I am quite certain the person that stole it was quite aware that it was merely a class three felony if he got caught.

Heck, possession of marijuana in most states is a class C or otherwise known as a class three felony. That is a very light potential cost to pay for a million dollars worth of a readily saleable and untraceable product. That is something like a maximum of 5 years (usually two years) or only 40 months (or 16 months on two years) after mandatory early release for good time. For a million dollars or more. How many of us make over 250 thousand dollars a year tax free.

Duh, I wonder why it disappeared? As far as it being a huge loss to him, he is a captain for TowBoat U.S. and is far from hurting considering what he makes from his regular jog as a commercial tow boat / tug boat captain. He likely lost less than a years pay in his investments if he just walks away from the whole situation and just abandons the whole project and his equipment etc.

As for storm losses, it is obvious if the other sites surrounding his were also buried tere would be no investigation ointo theft or any newspaper artivcles on theft butinstead at most an article on all the operators losing their rock to storms. There are only a few sites where live rock aquaculyure is being done and the leases at the different sites are all side by side not spread out. There was a site that was totally destroyed by storms years ago but all the leases at the site lost their rock not one person.
Click to expand...

You make a few good points. However that doesn't make it right either.


However, I agree most with your statement of him being a bad businessman. If you have to "abandon" your business for 1.5 years, either sell half of it, all of it, or hire a "vice president/ceo" to watch over the business while you are away. I cannot think of a successful businessman who started a company, didn't watch over it / hire a VP/CEO and succeed. You're only asking for failure.

He might as well hire those divers, mine what's left, and call it a day.
 
1. He can only sell the amount of LR that the vat's on the boat hold. So, in 1.5 years, he has only made 1 trip out there? Either those vats hold tens of thousands of pounds, or he isn't selling any of this rock.
Click to expand...
It takes several years for the rock to be colonized and ready for harvest. The only trips he made out there were to dump the rock and then to check on its progress. He found out it was missing when he went to start the first harvest.

The rock is harvested on as-needed basis, not all at once, so there is no need to hold more than a few hundred pounds on the boat.
 
The rock shown was harvested 1.5 years ago and it was quite well colonized for aquacultured rock. Though it was nice that his parents well being was more important than his bussiness venture with live rock, as it was excuse to have abandoned analready harvestable live rock for the last yerar and a half, it was obvious that that priority cost him a lot of money. I doubt taking care of his parents kept him from working this regular job as a tug captain so it should not have kept him from watching over his rock site or from paying someone for doing so. That would be a sad busineess making very liitle profit if only a few hundred pounds were harvested at a time. Boat deprceation, operating cost and scuba equipment, fuel costs, and transporation for only a few hundred pounds. I would think not.
 
One thing guilty people always say is I am innocent. Take a poll in any prison and you would likely find that nearly 100% of the convicted criminals claim innocense.

The rock could be buried, moved or sold. The evidence so far shows the owner was not a wise manager of his business.
 
I brought your quote over Liverock.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15214911#post15214911 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by liverock
Here is a c/p from my email


Ken Banks and interested parties,
I spoke with the local federal agents about this on Tuesday and have known
about the investigation for over a month. My opinion is that nobody stole
the rock,... it's just buried. I have a state live rock lease within a few
miles of this guys site and it regularly gets trashed by just a big blow.
We put close to 160,000 pounds of rock in the water in the summer of 2005,
stacked it on top of 200,000 pounds of rock that was mostly buried from
previous storms, and by the end of the year most of it had disappeared into
the sand. We spent dozens of dives on the site in the summer of 2006
digging the rock up out of the sand, and in the fall it was once again
buried by tropical storms. We haven't had a hurricane hit us for a couple
years, but it doesn't take a direct hit to bury rocks that are sitting in
sand out in federal waters. Last fall we had several hurricanes pass close
enough to give us tropical storm force winds (Ike in particular) and those
winds buried most of the rock we had dug up at our Lower Matecumbe site
during the summer of 2008, so it's likely his site met the same fate.

I've been growing live rock in the Keys since 1994, longer than anyone, and
I know from experience that success doesn't come easy, and that location is
very important. Success requires monthly maintenance, if not weekly, and
tropical storms can and will completely destroy an exposed site. After
talking to the NOAA agent down here, I got the impression that he basically
put his rock on the bottom then didn't visit the site for over a year (two
years is what I heard). I hate to break the news to him, but it doesn't
work like that (if it did, I'd be retired by now).

To imply that 300,000 pounds of rock was stolen over the last year has some
logistical problems.
First of all, that's a lot of rock, and it's an easy thing to dump it on
the bottom, but a whole lot more work to collect it on the bottom and pull
it all back up.
Second, it would take at least a hundred trips to bring it all back in,
and then it would have to be transported somewhere for holding, then shipped
somewhere. A hundred trips would pretty much mean that someone would be out
there poaching rock on every decent day for the last year. I find it hard
to believe that anyone could steal 300,000 pounds of rock from the
Islamorada area without someone noticing it happening.
Third, 300,000 pounds of rock doesn't just disappear into the aquarium
trade without causing some sort of ripple.
Lastly (but I could go on and on), Unless someone has an aquaculture
permit, why would they poach cultured rock when it would be much easier to
poach the real thing? The chances of getting caught poaching rock from
either of my live rock sites is much higher than it would be from the
rubble zones of the reef, so it wouldn't make sense to target an aquaculture
site. I guess it's remotely possible that another aquaculture permit
holder could have stolen the rock, but if you go back to the first three
points, it doesn't add up.

This same thing happened about 6 years ago with two guys off Islamorada, and
at the time I suggested that the same thing had happened (storm damage). I
don't know what the outcome of that investigation was, but as long as people
think they can put a mound of rock on the bottom (in the sand, in the open
ocean) and think it's going to stay there undisturbed for two years we're
going to continue to get these kinds of claims.

I would suggest that someone go out there and show this guy how to dig rock
up out of the sand before any more time is wasted on an investigation. Most
likely the rock is all still there, and for him the reality of growing live
rock in the open ocean is going to lose some of it's luster. For a second
opinion on this, just ask any other live rock farmer in the Keys and I
suspect that you'll hear the same story (Start with Richard Londeree, Don
DeMaria, and Forrest Young) Ken Nedimyer
Click to expand...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15214665#post15214665 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenbean36191
It takes several years for the rock to be colonized and ready for harvest. The only trips he made out there were to dump the rock and then to check on its progress. He found out it was missing when he went to start the first harvest.

The rock is harvested on as-needed basis, not all at once, so there is no need to hold more than a few hundred pounds on the boat.
Click to expand...

Right. He mentioned 4-5 years. So I am just "assuming" he had dumped $100,000 worth of base rock into the ocean all at once, many years ago.

If he knows it takes 4-5 years to colonize, why make any trips out there? I mean a) you'd have to assume insurance can and should have been bought and b) you can "trust" the 'oceans', but obviously not. I hadn't known or heard of anyone "stealing" rock before. Nonetheless, I'd buy insurance for any real business "I" ran, but that's just me. Maybe he was doing it illegally or partially illegal? Hence why he decided to NOT buy any insurance. I don't know... I mean, why NOT buy insurance for your investment?

That's just like NOT buying ANY insurance on a $100,000 car... right?
 
quote:Originally posted by liverock

I got the impression that he basically put his rock on the bottom then didn't visit the site for over a year (two years is what I heard). I hate to break the news to him, but it doesn't work like that (if it did, I'd be retired by now). To imply that 300,000 pounds of rock was stolen over the last year has some logistical problems. First of all, that's a lot of rock, and it's an easy thing to dump it on the bottom, but a whole lot more work to collect it on the bottom and pull it all back up. Second, it would take at least a hundred trips to bring it all back in, and then it would have to be transported somewhere for holding, then shipped somewhere. A hundred trips would pretty much mean that someone would be out there poaching rock on every decent day for the last year. I find it hard to believe that anyone could steal 300,000 pounds of rock from the Islamorada area without someone noticing it happening. Third, 300,000 pounds of rock doesn't just disappear into the aquarium trade without causing some sort of ripple. Lastly (but I could go on and on), Unless someone has an aquaculture permit, why would they poach cultured rock when it would be much easier to poach the real thing? The chances of getting caught poaching rock from either of my live rock sites is much higher than it would be from the rubble zones of the reef, so it wouldn't make sense to target an aquaculture site.
Click to expand...

Right. Just look at my theory above. :)
 
hey ifisch, did you hear about the horrible owners of crystal reef aquariums, on northlake and properity farms road, who stole lots of live rock and c orals from the carribean, and went to prison!!!

(i just like to baj him, whenever possible, they are a reraly bad lfs and deserve to be shut down.
 
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