Guits' Caribbean Rose Coral Tank

Guits, I believe you purchased all your live rock from Gulf Live Rock, if I remember correctly. Did you use their free shipping or did you pick up at the airport? If you used their free shipping, how did the rock look when it arrived?

According to their shipping chart, you and I are both in their 3 day delivery zone. I'm trying to determine if I should spring the extra $$$ for air freight or just get more rock by sticking to free shipping.
 
griss said:
Guits, I believe you purchased all your live rock from Gulf Live Rock, if I remember correctly. Did you use their free shipping or did you pick up at the airport? If you used their free shipping, how did the rock look when it arrived?

According to their shipping chart, you and I are both in their 3 day delivery zone. I'm trying to determine if I should spring the extra $$$ for air freight or just get more rock by sticking to free shipping.
Click to expand...

Yup, the rock was from Gulf Live Rock. I lived in Boston at the time, and the free shipping actually arrived on the 2nd day for me (not the 3rd day). I don't remember all the details, but I think my first order was during winter so I paid for overnight and it arrived in decent shape, one order I paid for overnight but due to a mistake from the shipper I didn't get it until the 2nd day and there was very significant die off (I was extremely upset because I paid the $$$ and gave very specific directions for delivery, and almost everything on the rock was DOA), and the other orders in the spring time when temperatures weren't too cold or hot I did the free shipping . Frankly, regardless of whether overnight or 2 day shipping was used, there was a good bit die off and areas of tissue on the coral that arrived dead and required months to really bounce back. The overnight shipment, as expected, arrived with less tissue death and recovered faster. The worst shipper was the gorgonian, with significant die off and it took a while for it to really recover. I believe gorgonians ship poorly in general.

After having ordered several times using both overnight and priority mail, I've come to accept that it's unreasonable to expect the hitchhikers to arrive alive all the time, and some DOA hitchhikers are the norm.
 
guits said:
Yup, the rock was from Gulf Live Rock. I lived in Boston at the time, and the free shipping actually arrived on the 2nd day for me (not the 3rd day). I don't remember all the details, but I think my first order was during winter so I paid for overnight and it arrived in decent shape, one order I paid for overnight but due to a mistake from the shipper I didn't get it until the 2nd day and there was very significant die off (I was extremely upset because I paid the $$$ and gave very specific directions for delivery, and almost everything on the rock was DOA), and the other orders in the spring time when temperatures weren't too cold or hot I did the free shipping . Frankly, regardless of whether overnight or 2 day shipping was used, there was a good bit die off and areas of tissue on the coral that arrived dead and required months to really bounce back. The overnight shipment, as expected, arrived with less tissue death and recovered faster. The worst shipper was the gorgonian, with significant die off and it took a while for it to really recover. I believe gorgonians ship poorly in general.

After having ordered several times using both overnight and priority mail, I've come to accept that it's unreasonable to expect the hitchhikers to arrive alive all the time, and some DOA hitchhikers are the norm.
Click to expand...

Thank you:thumbsup:
 
I've acquired some additional rock with hitchhikers and also upgraded my lighting to a Nanobox mini. With the new light, it's really difficult to take pictures with my iPhone that represent how how it actually looks in real life, but this picture it pretty close:



The tank photographed a lot better with my old Chinese eBay lights, but the tank actually looks a bit nicer in real life with the new lights.
 
Love this tank, thanks for the updated picture. Are you still trying to find anything specific for this tank or at the stage of letting things fill in?
 
joshky said:
Love this tank, thanks for the updated picture. Are you still trying to find anything specific for this tank or at the stage of letting things fill in?
Click to expand...

Thanks! I've been letting things settle in. I'd love to add more specimens of coral into this tank, but it's pretty packed with rock already and since I rely on hitchhikers from live rock there really isn't much more space.

gblaszczuk said:
What size is this nano?
Click to expand...

It's a Fluval Spec V, so contains about 5-6 gallons of water I believe.
 
Awesome tank, guits!

On a side note, I noticed that you said that "hard corals from Florida can only be obtained as hitchhikers from aquacultured live rock." Does this apply to Florida species of acropora as well? I am guessing that you probably got your live rock and coral hitchhikers from Gulf Coast suppliers simply because they are more numerous, but I know that there are now suppliers of live rock in the Florida Keys, where acropora grows naturally. Theoretically, if some acropora were to naturally grow on such legally aquacultured live rock, would it be legal to buy live rock with acropora living on it?

Sorry if this is a bit off topic!
 
Yrahcaz said:
Awesome tank, guits!

On a side note, I noticed that you said that "hard corals from Florida can only be obtained as hitchhikers from aquacultured live rock." Does this apply to Florida species of acropora as well? I am guessing that you probably got your live rock and coral hitchhikers from Gulf Coast suppliers simply because they are more numerous, but I know that there are now suppliers of live rock in the Florida Keys, where acropora grows naturally. Theoretically, if some acropora were to naturally grow on such legally aquacultured live rock, would it be legal to buy live rock with acropora living on it?

Sorry if this is a bit off topic!
Click to expand...


Thanks! This rock was aquacultured in the Tampa Area. I am not sure about acropora as hitchhikers ... I believe that they may actually illegal to own regardless of whether it came as a hitchhiker, due to its protection status? Although if it grew out for aquacultured rock, I don't understand why you would be culpable, but maybe there are nuances about the laws that I don't know about.
 
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