The Aussie is pricy, something like $25 per pound plus shipping.
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- Thread starter JohnL
- Start date
These are from a few years back. First from Richard at TBS.
I have been shipping live rock going on 40 years now.....I have seen the industry evolve, change, morph and then change again.
When we were collecting rock from the ocean in the early 1980's it was the only game in town. Then the ban on live rock from state and federal waters went into place.
A few of us went the aquaculture route but there simply was not enough of cultured live rock to fit the void in the industry that was suffering from not enough rock.
This created a demand for more rock which resulted in all the man made/manufactured dry live rock. The marketplace quickly began filling with all types of artificial dry rock, as there was not enough 'real' live rock to fill the demand.
The Dry dead rock industry blossomed as folks had to use something in their reef tanks, and the result was many reefers went with it as they simply could not get 'real' live rock.
But now most folks have figured out that dry/dead rock presented a lot of problems when starting and trying to get a new tank established. The algae problems developed and the tanks took forever to come around to a point where they were successful in keeping stock alive.
And the industry is shifting again as I get daily calls from folks really tired of the dry rock look, and it's results. Reefers are reverting to real live rock again as it will provide a biologically stable tank with diversity that will never happen with dry rock. I have had many folks throw in the towel, ditch the dry rock and go with 'real' live rock again. Especially the hard coral folks who have reported that after restocking with 'real' live rock, not only did their coals do much better, their tanks are actually alive now.
So....another morph in the industry, evolving to the 'real' thing again and happy tanks.
Unfortunately we are in the same boat again with availability of 'real' live rock again as the biggest producer of it was Walt Smith who literally supplied the world with his wild harvested live rock. That all stopped the first of this year. Now there is a HUGE vacuum for live rock as those of us who are producing it simply cannot fill the void Walt left. After the ban in Fiji in February I started getting calls from all over the world from Walt's customers looking for containers of live rock <25,000> pounds each shipped to them.
I have to turn them all down as it is simply not possible me to fill that volume, so they are forced to go the dead/dry rock route as there is nothing else to use in their tanks.
This has eliminated the ease of setting up a reef tank and have it ready to go in a couple of weeks. The trend I am seeing now is folks frustrated with the look and function of dry rock and created a new market of "I need some real live rock" to add to my tank and it's biodiversity and benefits.
So here we go again, market is shifting again, and I see it everyday with the orders from folks saying 'I need something to make my tank come alive" please send me some to populate my tank.
Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
This from your's truly.
I'm going to get into some of what Richard spoke about in his post, but I'm going to take it a little further. Most of you know I've been in the hobby over thirty years now. Back then, live rock was very live. For the really good stuff, we were paying anywhere from 15 to 20 dollars a pound. At that time there were around 6 very good LFS's in this area. Saltwater was taking off here, and the word reef was being thrown around. The mags were showing some pics of tanks and we all started going nuts trying to get tanks going up here. We all had bleached out coral heads in our fish tanks. What happened next was beyond what we ever thought was possible.
The guys at all the LFS and a few of us hobbyists got together every once and a while to have a little talk about things we had heard, (no real club yet, or internet forums, but that happened later). On one of the meets, someone showed off the "new" live rock. There was green stuff, all kinds of strange colors, bi-valves, limpets, worms and all these tiny bugs, (pods)!!! Now mind you, this scared some of us. My wife had dreams about things crawling out the tank and eating her. She also spent hours sitting in front of it watching all the life moving around. This was something quite new.
I'm going to end this part of the story for now anyway. This is where I want some of you as old as me to go back too. I didn't have a skimmer. Had a big hang on , (Aquaclear I think), hanging on the back with carbon in it. That's it. Nothing else. There weren't many corals added. A hammer, a bubble and a few shrooms. Three or four fish. Back in the day, it was a beautiful tank. Hammer and bubble grew, mushrooms multiplied. Things were stable for quite a few years. If you bought any green stripped mushrooms in the area, they probably came from my tank. Thing is, there is something that I don't remember having in that tank, algae outbreaks. I don't ever remember seeing cyano. I can't say it was because of the live rock, but I'm pretty sure it was because of the live rock. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
I have been shipping live rock going on 40 years now.....I have seen the industry evolve, change, morph and then change again.
When we were collecting rock from the ocean in the early 1980's it was the only game in town. Then the ban on live rock from state and federal waters went into place.
A few of us went the aquaculture route but there simply was not enough of cultured live rock to fit the void in the industry that was suffering from not enough rock.
This created a demand for more rock which resulted in all the man made/manufactured dry live rock. The marketplace quickly began filling with all types of artificial dry rock, as there was not enough 'real' live rock to fill the demand.
The Dry dead rock industry blossomed as folks had to use something in their reef tanks, and the result was many reefers went with it as they simply could not get 'real' live rock.
But now most folks have figured out that dry/dead rock presented a lot of problems when starting and trying to get a new tank established. The algae problems developed and the tanks took forever to come around to a point where they were successful in keeping stock alive.
And the industry is shifting again as I get daily calls from folks really tired of the dry rock look, and it's results. Reefers are reverting to real live rock again as it will provide a biologically stable tank with diversity that will never happen with dry rock. I have had many folks throw in the towel, ditch the dry rock and go with 'real' live rock again. Especially the hard coral folks who have reported that after restocking with 'real' live rock, not only did their coals do much better, their tanks are actually alive now.
So....another morph in the industry, evolving to the 'real' thing again and happy tanks.
Unfortunately we are in the same boat again with availability of 'real' live rock again as the biggest producer of it was Walt Smith who literally supplied the world with his wild harvested live rock. That all stopped the first of this year. Now there is a HUGE vacuum for live rock as those of us who are producing it simply cannot fill the void Walt left. After the ban in Fiji in February I started getting calls from all over the world from Walt's customers looking for containers of live rock <25,000> pounds each shipped to them.
I have to turn them all down as it is simply not possible me to fill that volume, so they are forced to go the dead/dry rock route as there is nothing else to use in their tanks.
This has eliminated the ease of setting up a reef tank and have it ready to go in a couple of weeks. The trend I am seeing now is folks frustrated with the look and function of dry rock and created a new market of "I need some real live rock" to add to my tank and it's biodiversity and benefits.
So here we go again, market is shifting again, and I see it everyday with the orders from folks saying 'I need something to make my tank come alive" please send me some to populate my tank.
Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
This from your's truly.
I'm going to get into some of what Richard spoke about in his post, but I'm going to take it a little further. Most of you know I've been in the hobby over thirty years now. Back then, live rock was very live. For the really good stuff, we were paying anywhere from 15 to 20 dollars a pound. At that time there were around 6 very good LFS's in this area. Saltwater was taking off here, and the word reef was being thrown around. The mags were showing some pics of tanks and we all started going nuts trying to get tanks going up here. We all had bleached out coral heads in our fish tanks. What happened next was beyond what we ever thought was possible.
The guys at all the LFS and a few of us hobbyists got together every once and a while to have a little talk about things we had heard, (no real club yet, or internet forums, but that happened later). On one of the meets, someone showed off the "new" live rock. There was green stuff, all kinds of strange colors, bi-valves, limpets, worms and all these tiny bugs, (pods)!!! Now mind you, this scared some of us. My wife had dreams about things crawling out the tank and eating her. She also spent hours sitting in front of it watching all the life moving around. This was something quite new.
I'm going to end this part of the story for now anyway. This is where I want some of you as old as me to go back too. I didn't have a skimmer. Had a big hang on , (Aquaclear I think), hanging on the back with carbon in it. That's it. Nothing else. There weren't many corals added. A hammer, a bubble and a few shrooms. Three or four fish. Back in the day, it was a beautiful tank. Hammer and bubble grew, mushrooms multiplied. Things were stable for quite a few years. If you bought any green stripped mushrooms in the area, they probably came from my tank. Thing is, there is something that I don't remember having in that tank, algae outbreaks. I don't ever remember seeing cyano. I can't say it was because of the live rock, but I'm pretty sure it was because of the live rock. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
RobertP1969
New member
RobertP1969
New member
What about live rock from my LFS? Should I ask them where it came from?
I’m surprised an LFS have live rock these days. Most are offering dry or dry/bacteria infused rock. But, yeah, ask them.
My guess is the answer you’ll get is it came from a customers tank or started dry
That’s what I was thinking too.
RobertP1969
New member
I’ll ask next time I’m over there. They are the only game in town as far as saltwater goes
shred5
Premium Member
Richard sold out a while ago now. The new owners are great and keep up pretty much with the same practices but they seem to be updating things a little more.
OrdinaryGirl
New member
Hi everybody,
I am a new reefer. I have had many freshwater setups over the years, mainly betta but some goldfish and tetras in there as well. This is my first time with a saltwater tank!
Though starting small comes with its own set of quirks, I received a 13.5 gallon fluval evo for my birthday this year, and away we go.
I started with some live rocks and dry rocks and live sand, and a bit of bacteria and a hermit crab shortly thereafter, and we were off. So far, I have:
A purple polka dot hermit, named Jorge
A scarlet hermit I almost never see (very nocturnal)
A purple/green feather duster
A couple of trochus snails
A couple of nassarius snails (I almost never see them, they're in the sand until feeding time)
A turbo snail I have to flip at least once a day, named Dudley do-right
And a Hector's goby.
The worm came with a teeny tiny hairy mushroom coral attached that none of us saw, but it is thriving in the tank so I thought, what the heck I'll get some more of those so we have some different mushrooms now as well.
I am hoping to get another live rock this weekend to dress the place up just a little, and I need some new plants for my betta (I definitely have a better light set up on my saltwater tank - this hobby has made me confront some shortcomings as a freshwater keeper, lol).
Should I ever figure out how to take photos with a smartphone, perhaps I shall post them. I'm in the pnw, albeit in Canada. But yes, I have discovered fragbox
Thanks for having me!
-Heather
I am a new reefer. I have had many freshwater setups over the years, mainly betta but some goldfish and tetras in there as well. This is my first time with a saltwater tank!
Though starting small comes with its own set of quirks, I received a 13.5 gallon fluval evo for my birthday this year, and away we go.
I started with some live rocks and dry rocks and live sand, and a bit of bacteria and a hermit crab shortly thereafter, and we were off. So far, I have:
A purple polka dot hermit, named Jorge
A scarlet hermit I almost never see (very nocturnal)
A purple/green feather duster
A couple of trochus snails
A couple of nassarius snails (I almost never see them, they're in the sand until feeding time)
A turbo snail I have to flip at least once a day, named Dudley do-right
And a Hector's goby.
The worm came with a teeny tiny hairy mushroom coral attached that none of us saw, but it is thriving in the tank so I thought, what the heck I'll get some more of those so we have some different mushrooms now as well.
I am hoping to get another live rock this weekend to dress the place up just a little, and I need some new plants for my betta (I definitely have a better light set up on my saltwater tank - this hobby has made me confront some shortcomings as a freshwater keeper, lol).
Should I ever figure out how to take photos with a smartphone, perhaps I shall post them. I'm in the pnw, albeit in Canada. But yes, I have discovered fragbox
Thanks for having me!
-Heather
Welcome!
Welcome.Hi everybody,
I am a new reefer. I have had many freshwater setups over the years, mainly betta but some goldfish and tetras in there as well. This is my first time with a saltwater tank!
Though starting small comes with its own set of quirks, I received a 13.5 gallon fluval evo for my birthday this year, and away we go.
I started with some live rocks and dry rocks and live sand, and a bit of bacteria and a hermit crab shortly thereafter, and we were off. So far, I have:
A purple polka dot hermit, named Jorge
A scarlet hermit I almost never see (very nocturnal)
A purple/green feather duster
A couple of trochus snails
A couple of nassarius snails (I almost never see them, they're in the sand until feeding time)
A turbo snail I have to flip at least once a day, named Dudley do-right
And a Hector's goby.
The worm came with a teeny tiny hairy mushroom coral attached that none of us saw, but it is thriving in the tank so I thought, what the heck I'll get some more of those so we have some different mushrooms now as well.
I am hoping to get another live rock this weekend to dress the place up just a little, and I need some new plants for my betta (I definitely have a better light set up on my saltwater tank - this hobby has made me confront some shortcomings as a freshwater keeper, lol).
Should I ever figure out how to take photos with a smartphone, perhaps I shall post them. I'm in the pnw, albeit in Canada. But yes, I have discovered fragbox
Thanks for having me!
-Heather
OrdinaryGirl
New member
I still honestly haven't figured out how to take pictures of the whole thing, but here's some recent ones of my giant snail and the first hermit (the other one is so shy I only see it in the middle of the night if I come looking).
My little nassarius vibex snail is a bully. He bullies the big nassarius, he bullies the big guy, he bullies the hermit, and he just generally wrecks the place - we call him Slurms McKenzie. A little wild, a little drunk, a little reckless and always ready to party.
We're still getting through some uglies so thankfully he only really wrecks things at feeding time (because otherwise he's in the sand working) LOL.
My little nassarius vibex snail is a bully. He bullies the big nassarius, he bullies the big guy, he bullies the hermit, and he just generally wrecks the place - we call him Slurms McKenzie. A little wild, a little drunk, a little reckless and always ready to party.
We're still getting through some uglies so thankfully he only really wrecks things at feeding time (because otherwise he's in the sand working) LOL.
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Looking great. Good things come with patience 
Welcome. Feel free to ask questions any time, we're here to help. You might want to start a build thread in this forum. A lot of us like to follow new builds and starting your own build thread will allow you to journal your progress and keep all your questions in one location.
Welcome!
Stringygames
New member
Hello, my name is Jason, I live in Sydney and am totally new to the hobby ( reef in tank) and am looking to set up a 20 gallon tank as simply as possible, I have had multiple freshwater tanks with lots of different fish however gave up the hobby a year back now I am back to start a coral reef this time
Welcome!
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