Modern Day Live Rock

[AuroraDrvr]

Is the live rock portion of our industry really in as bad of a state as it seems? I've been completely out of the hobby for 4-5 years, out of the loop for a bit longer than that. I really haven't followed any of the trends and happenings as of late. However, we got the opportunity to setup a reef tank again. So, we decided to add some LR to the stuff we had stored away, and have been a little shell shocked at what's really available.

It seems that the only real live rock being imported is from Fiji, through Walt Smith. Nothing else. No Marshall Islands, no Vanuatu, no Tonga, no Haiti, no Java, no Jakarta, no Bali. Yes, I understand there has been some government and CITES involvement which has hindered exports, but grey round Fijian mini-boulders that have been on a boat for 3 months can't be the only thing available? Out of the three types of Fiji rock, Tukani seems about the best for shapes, but its still not great. A couple little specks of green and red coloring deem it "ultra" live rock and command a $10/lb price tag. Crazy! To be frank, I really don't even care about colors either. Shapes are way more important, and there really is nothing out there. Some Fiji branch that's both hard to get and dense/expensive, Totoka which is dead pocillopora boulders, and Pukani which is just more boring round boulders.

While I do live in an area which is a major dead zone in terms of LFS, even online retailers aren't selling decent live rock. DFS/LA seems to have switched completely to Reef Ready type(s) of rock. Painted cement with boring shapes, super dense and quite honestly a bit of an eye sore. I get the whole "responsible reef keeping thing", but don't necessarily agree with it in practice. Every other retailer is hawking Fiji rock, anywhere from $1.50/lb to $10/lb, and not much of anything else.

My apologies if the post comes off as negative or whiny, but it's a little disheartening to get back into the hobby after just a few years away, only to have the availability of something so readily available that we took it for granted, severely diminished.

So my question is, what is modern day live rock? Is everyone simply using Fiji boulders and letting nature take it's course? Is everyone switching over to fake rock? Or is everyone just buying and trading amongst other reefers for rock that was imported 10 years ago, which looks half-way decent?

 

[thegrun]

I think that the majority of us are not using live rock but rather opting for ancient reef rock mined in Florida. The trade in reef rock taken off live reefs has thankfully been banned in most countries. There are some regulated companies that take certified mined rock and place it in the ocean where it becomes live rock and then harvest that rock, but since the process is labor intensive the cost is also high.

 

[ReefEco]

I think this is a trend that is encouraging, but I hear your frustration. More and more things in the hobby need to, and are, becoming more environmentally sustainable. With all the choices for non-wild rock, other filter media to augment less porous media, and the increasing pressures on reefs - I think the argument for wild harvested rock is losing ground. If you think about it, wild rock that is not just dead coral skeleton (which I have to question as even a remotely sustainable or responsible product) it is actually a resource far less renewable than even coral - taking orders of magnitude longer to form. A couple months ago BRS offered up a "limited time, limited quantity" special live rock - which was just bleached coral skeletons (essentially curio). I posted a question about why and how they sourced it, asking if it was just bleached corals from dying reefs how could they possible sell it, and why was it only "occasionally available"? Perhaps only collected after a mass bleaching event, storm, etc? They couldn't answer, and took the product down the next day. Even their popular Pukani dry rock is questionable, in terms of sourcing. You have to wonder why nowadays "live rock" that is dead coral skeletons is more available now than it was 20 years ago when I started reefing... not a good sign. I'll only ever use BRS reef saver rock - which can be made into just about any shape with a little epoxy and time, so the subjective argument for lack of good shapes falls away as well - 6 Months and some coralline and no one is the wiser - but that is just subjective I know. Real Reef rock is ok, some like it, some hate it. Check out Vivid Aquarium's new 800 gallon rebuild - looks pretty sweet to me, and zero impact. I think we can be more productive and responsible in the hobby by embracing sustainable trends in rock, aquacultured corals, and tank-bred fish, rather than fighting them.

 

[AuroraDrvr]

This post is probably going to push this thread more towards "Responsible Reefkeeping" rather than "What rock does everyone use", But I'm the OP, so we can roll with it. :spin1:

I think that the majority of us are not using live rock but rather opting for ancient reef rock mined in Florida. The trade in reef rock taken off live reefs has thankfully been banned in most countries. There are some regulated companies that take certified mined rock and place it in the ocean where it becomes live rock and then harvest that rock, but since the process is labor intensive the cost is also high.

Appreciate it. Seems like what I was a bit fearful of.

I do understand how the dry rock dealio works. Some time ago, when I used to live it South Florida one could visit construction sites and pull up tons of oolite rocks, ancient coral heads and skeletons, several miles in land. We've collected a number of ancient skeletons from Meandrina, Dendrogyra and Stephanocoenia colonies, all of them excavated from 10-20', 10-20 miles in land. The issue with Florida dry rock is that it's dense, heavy, loaded with impurities, and flat out boring.

While I do believe a reduction in the amount of live rock and coral being imported is a good thing, I do not believe that completely eliminating live rock and coral imports is a good thing. In fact, I think it will end up hurting the hobby in the long run. (Explained below)

I think this is a trend that is encouraging, but I hear your frustration. More and more things in the hobby need to, and are, becoming more environmentally sustainable. With all the choices for non-wild rock, other filter media to augment less porous media, and the increasing pressures on reefs - I think the argument for wild harvested rock is losing ground. If you think about it, wild rock that is not just dead coral skeleton (which I have to question as even a remotely sustainable or responsible product) it is actually a resource far less renewable than even coral - taking orders of magnitude longer to form. A couple months ago BRS offered up a "limited time, limited quantity" special live rock - which was just bleached coral skeletons (essentially curio). I posted a question about why and how they sourced it, asking if it was just bleached corals from dying reefs how could they possible sell it, and why was it only "occasionally available"? Perhaps only collected after a mass bleaching event, storm, etc? They couldn't answer, and took the product down the next day. Even their popular Pukani dry rock is questionable, in terms of sourcing. You have to wonder why nowadays "live rock" that is dead coral skeletons is more available now than it was 20 years ago when I started reefing... not a good sign. I'll only ever use BRS reef saver rock - which can be made into just about any shape with a little epoxy and time, so the subjective argument for lack of good shapes falls away as well - 6 Months and some coralline and no one is the wiser - but that is just subjective I know. Real Reef rock is ok, some like it, some hate it. Check out Vivid Aquarium's new 800 gallon rebuild - looks pretty sweet to me, and zero impact. I think we can be more productive and responsible in the hobby by embracing sustainable trends in rock, aquacultured corals, and tank-bred fish, rather than fighting them.

I understand the feel-good nature of sustainability, but I also do not believe that there is a realistic grasp of how small the live rock impact is, or was on the environment. Live rock imports were estimated around 3-7 million pounds per year by various government agencies. We'll use the high estimate as an example, 7 million pounds. The lightest limestone has a density around 110 lb/cu.ft. At 7 million pounds, that's about 63,600cu.ft. of rock. For a scale comparison, a 40' shipping container is 2700cu.ft. Since live rock isn't solid through, lets figure a 30% leeway for air space from holes, branches, etc, we're at 82,700cu.ft. total volume of rock, or 30 shipping containers worth of live rock, per year, being pulled from the waters. For even more scale comparison, the average small container ship has a capacity of about 4000 TEU (one TEU = one 20' container). With bad math, that's 2000 40' shipping containers. With live rock imports not really beginning until the 90's, we can figure 25 years worth of live rock import. Using our 30 containers per year calculation, we've pulled about 760 shipping containers worth of rock out of the ocean since live rock imports began. Think about the size of coral reefs, think about the size of a small container ship, now half it. It's minuscule in the grand scheme of things. Pulled this picture from TBS's website. It's 500,000lb of dry rock.

A single hurricane could easily dump enough sand to bury many, many, many times that in coral and live rock in a single location. In fact a few years ago, I remember an article about a live rock aquaculturer out of the Florida keys who claimed someone stole 100,000lbs (iirc) of live rock. What ended up happening, was a rather small thunderstorm actually buried ALL of the rock under a couple feet worth of sand. That was a single aquaculture lease no bigger than a few acres. Imagine the scale we are talking about now. Another example is a tropical storm we had blow through many moons ago in South Florida. Due to beach erosion and deposition of sand, a single tropical storm buried an entire state park's worth (2 miles) of coral reefs in 1 day. This only accounts for the state park's reefs. Not the miles of reefs north and south of the state park that were also damaged. Another thing to consider is where we are pulling all of that live rock from. We aren't pulling it off a single beach, but rather all over the world. I'm sure there are areas that are probably decimated from irresponsible collection practices, but I would argue that's not the norm at all. The live rock portion of the industry is not stripping islands completely bare of live rock.


Moving away from the scale of it all, I think a continued push towards a hobby that is majoritively sourced from sustainable products is likely going to induce a "freshwater-syndrome". Rather than picking out unique species of fish, coral and rock, you'll pick from 10 different types of man made rock, add pulverized limestone for substrate, and pick out a couple of fish from the 30-40 readily available species. Everyone is going to end up with the same tanks. Just like where freshwater is today. How many thousands, if not millions, of tanks are there in the USA that have brown gravel, some plastic plants, a Pleco and a few FW angels? It's sterilizing the hobby, and I think that's a bad thing. Painted man-made live rock is the equivalent to plastic plants. Quarried dry rock is the equivalent of driftwood. It's going water down the hobby, much like freshwater's death. Sure there maybe more people into FW tanks then ever before, but those that are hardcore into it, with planted tanks, monster fish, etc, are few and far between, they are even rarer than SW reefers.

I know I am basically condoning the "bad" things in our hobby, but they are what make our hobby unique. While I think certain things aren't necessarily good, such as dried pukani rock as you mention, or the dried out coral colonies that BRS was selling, I don't think we need to bend over backwards in pursuit of 100% sustainability. Otherwise we run the risk of losing the essence of our hobby.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Your comment,"I know I am basically condoning the "bad" things in our hobby, but they are what make our hobby unique."

I was going to say something nasty that the moderators may not have liked... but I'll keep it to myself.

 

[ktownhero]

Use dry rock or ecologically responsible live rock sellers like Tampa Bay Saltwater... The days of using rock ripped from live reefs is dying, as it very well should.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[Green Chromis]

Use dry rock or ecologically responsible live rock sellers like Tampa Bay Saltwater... The days of using rock ripped from live reefs is dying, as it very well should.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

:fish1: A lot more live rock that is collected from the various islands in the Pacific, is used for building material and roadways, on these various islands then all the live rock ever collected for the aquarium trade. To me, the only rock that I will ever use is the highest quality live rock that I can find, all though expensive, I love the look of it and all the flora and fauna on it. You can still find very good live rock, you just need to search for it, and it is very expensive. The good thing is, once you have it you will never need to replace it. :fish1:

 

[OllieNZ]

I would have to disagree on the FW side of the hobby. It's far from 'sterile' there a vast quantity of different species available from a massive range of habitats not to mention aquatic plants. The major difference is that the majority of freshwater fish and plants is they are easily cultivated in captivity lessening the environmental impact.

 

[Dmorty217]

If you want actual substainable "live rock" tbsaltwater.com is what you want. Responsible, and was all dry rock at one time so you're not taking resources from the ocean like you get in the pacific

 

[ReefEco]

Hey AuroraDrvr - I think there is lots of evidence to contradict your argument that reefers will or are trending toward more bland tanks because of the increasing sustainability practices - just look at all the beautiful tanks out there, and importantly, look at the increasing presence of aquacultured coral, both commercial and by hobbyists on a small scale. Specifically regarding live rock, as with many things that humans impact on the planet, the acknowledgement that we are doing significant harm, but that it is on a small enough scale to not matter, is neither a logical or sustainable argument, at least to me. I think that is the argument a coal-ash spewing factory owner in London a hundred years ago made - "there is so much air out there, I'm only polluting a little of it" - and look what happened in London, and by extension the rest of the world. Reefs have an incredible amount of human, and non-human pressures - from ocean acidification, ocean temperature rise, agricultural run-off, disruption of food web imbalance by all the above (i.e. overfishing removing a key species that vastly impacts ability of a reef to thrive - COT starfish/urchin decimation, etc.) that taken all together are outpacing reef's ability to adapt. If we can use manmade rock, and take even a tiny bit of pressure off reefs - why wouldn't we? Same for coral aquaculture - don't we have the responsibility to pay $10 more for a frag if it prevents a small pressure on wild collection? (Not to mention that the aquacultured frag probably looks better, is pre-selected for tank life, and has a higher percentage chance of surviving in our tanks, probably saving you money in the long run). While I understand your perspective on trying to ensure our tanks are diverse and interesting, I absolutely believe that we can still accomplish this. I just changed my screen name to ReefEco, after being on the forum for 15 years, in part because the 300gallon dream tank I'm planning will be specifically geared toward demonstrating that we can achieve this - with as little impact on the wild as possible. I already know that I can build the tank with zero coral taken from the ocean (which is easy now a day), fish is a little harder and there may be some compromises there. If you haven't already, check out IPSF.com - Indo Pacific Sea Farms, which farms similar flora and fauna that would come in on live rock. I've used them many times to successfully inoculate dry sand and manmade rock - captive raised snails, pods, algae, live sand starters, even small PVC plates with coralline on them to introduce that into your tank. And a can totally guarantee you that with a chisel, epoxy, and a little time, you can create from manmade rock (like BRS's reef saver) an aquascape that is stunning - and even more interesting than could be possible with just chunks of wild live rock. Give it a try!

 

[Fiver]

Use dry rock or ecologically responsible live rock sellers like Tampa Bay Saltwater... The days of using rock ripped from live reefs is dying, as it very well should.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

I would have to disagree on the FW side of the hobby. It's far from 'sterile' there a vast quantity of different species available from a massive range of habitats not to mention aquatic plants. The major difference is that the majority of freshwater fish and plants is they are easily cultivated in captivity lessening the environmental impact.

Agreed on both fronts. We should be doing whatever we can to lessen the environmental impacts of the hobby. Maybe I have a bad eye, but I've never noticed any particularly major/important/special or "unique" difference in hobbyists' live rock once it's covered in corals and a bunch of fish and inverts are added.

Local use of live rock for construction is no reason to feel that we have the right or permission to use it for the aquarium trade because it is less "bad."

As a mostly freshwater guy who is new to reefkeeping, I also agree that freshwater is far from sterile. It's all up to the individual to make their setups unique. The reality is that most people, as in most areas of life, are conventional and make choices that dovetail with group thinking/behavior/mainstream tastes.

 

[OllieNZ]

As a mostly freshwater guy who is new to reefkeeping, I also agree that freshwater is far from sterile. It's all up to the individual to make their setups unique. The reality is that most people, as in most areas of life, are conventional and make choices that dovetail with group thinking/behavior/mainstream tastes.

+1
Viewing the salt water hobby from the outside is quite similar in regards to the traditional stocking of a couple of clowns and a yellow tang

I've always liked odd and interesting fish



And I don't do plastic plants

 

[reef thief]

We take live rock from reef. Then it goes somewhere else to live. How is this bad? Does live rock go to heaven when it dies? I would like to believe it does because that's happy thoughts. Parrot fish destroy more rock than man does every day. If parrot fish do it I should be able to too. But I want everyone else to make it happen for me. We can say that their diet helps the reef but they just crush it into sand which does like....nothing. I wonder if live sand goes to heaven when it dies. I'm sure it goes to Gene Wilder heaven.

 

[nmotz]

I'm also fairly new to the hobby so I'll add my 2 cents....

I've heard from older reefers that "once upon a time" there was this other-worldly live rock available and I have to admit that because I've never seen that live rock, I just don't know what they're talking about. Like the OP said, what live rock I have seen is not impressive at all. It certainly doesn't look different from the Reefsaver dry rock that I've had in my tank for the last 18 months.

I'm guessing there was a time when you could get rock with tons of coral and plants and hitchhikers sent to your doorstep? Need a little history lesson I suppose.

My opinion is that this hobby is already in danger of being made illegal due to a number of different problems, not just live rock collection. I don't want to tempt the powers that be into shutting it down entirely. Especially not when I can build a really nice looking tank using reefsaver dry rock that has no phosphates, no bad hitchhikers, no nuisance algae, etc....

The only difference is the immediate gratification factor. You have to wait for dry rock to become encrusted with all kinds of life. But isn't waiting something we have to do a lot of in this hobby anyway? If you buy a piece of coral, you'll have to wait for it to grow out and look nice, for example. My tank didn't look like much at all until it passed the 1 yr mark. Now, it's respectable, not TOTM quality, but also not just a glass box full of water with some funny looking "growths" on the rock.

It's not a political issue for me either, we have to take better care of the ocean. I can't imagine what it'd be like if it was illegal to keep an aquarium or go diving or something. I would hate that.

 

[AuroraDrvr]

Your comment,"I know I am basically condoning the "bad" things in our hobby, but they are what make our hobby unique."

I was going to say something nasty that the moderators may not have liked... but I'll keep it to myself.

I understand where you are coming from, but I simply do not agree. I know there's a fine line between devil's advocate, and what you probably wanted to call me. Should we be reducing our reliance on the oceans? Yes. Should we completely cut it off? No. I've made my points as to why.

Dare I say, that coral and fish harvesting is far more destructive to a reef than taking live rock. Live rock that amounts to 5 football fields worth, over the course of 25 years, is not going to matter. What will matter is live rock that is mined by the billions of pounds every year to build new islands, roads, bridges, and that is crushed into sand to make beaches "pretty".

If CITES and Government interference were completely eliminated, I would guarantee that every country who used to export rock, would pick it back up in a second. And nearly every reefer would happily go to their LFS and pay $3/lb for the most amazing pieces.

If you really want to make a difference, why not champion mortality rates amongst corals and fish? The last numbers I read a few years ago, mortality rate among fish in the SW aquarium trade was around 80% within the first six months, 90% within the first year. That's staggering. And it is majoritively a result of completely avoidable reasons. Both poor handling post collection, and a lack of knowledge and experience are the two main factors. Both completely avoidable.

:fish1: A lot more live rock that is collected from the various islands in the Pacific, is used for building material and roadways, on these various islands then all the live rock ever collected for the aquarium trade. To me, the only rock that I will ever use is the highest quality live rock that I can find, all though expensive, I love the look of it and all the flora and fauna on it. You can still find very good live rock, you just need to search for it, and it is very expensive. The good thing is, once you have it you will never need to replace it. :fish1:

I completely agree. A tank with high quality live rock is something special. There is no way to argue otherwise. However, I think there is a balance between providing a quality wild-harvested live rock, and doing it in a manner that is ethical and long term sustainable. Completely banning the import of wild live rock is not going make a dent in the long run. It's akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I would have to disagree on the FW side of the hobby. It's far from 'sterile' there a vast quantity of different species available from a massive range of habitats not to mention aquatic plants. The major difference is that the majority of freshwater fish and plants is they are easily cultivated in captivity lessening the environmental impact.

There are many beautiful FW aquariums that I would consider hobbyist tanks. Then there are FW tanks that are thrown together with a pleco and some tiger barbs, because it is easy and mainstream. I am willing to bet that the "easy" tanks make up 95-99% of the FW aquarium trade. That's what I fear the SW hobby becoming. Will there always be the hardcore guys? Yes. With a move towards 100% human-sourced product, we're going to end up like the "easy" tanks. We already have "live" rock that's been painted to simulate coraline. No longer does anyone have to work to acheive perfectly purple and pink rocks. Throw 'em in and go.

If you want actual substainable "live rock" tbsaltwater.com is what you want. Responsible, and was all dry rock at one time so you're not taking resources from the ocean like you get in the pacific

I purposely left out maricultured live rock on purpose. I would ask where the source rocks came from? Looking at TBS' website, they say their original source rock is Bahamian Coral Rock. Is the rock mined from reefs, or rock that's mined from quarries? They are also placing and selling tons of Pukani dry rock. Pukani dry rock is nothing more than live rock that was accidentally killed or left out to dry. Now the exporter has to call it something, so they call it dry rock. It's still tearing up the oceans.

But that's not just TBS. ALL dry rock from overseas is pulled from the oceans.

Hey AuroraDrvr - I think there is lots of evidence to contradict your argument that reefers will or are trending toward more bland tanks because of the increasing sustainability practices - just look at all the beautiful tanks out there, and importantly, look at the increasing presence of aquacultured coral, both commercial and by hobbyists on a small scale. Specifically regarding live rock, as with many things that humans impact on the planet, the acknowledgement that we are doing significant harm, but that it is on a small enough scale to not matter, is neither a logical or sustainable argument, at least to me. I think that is the argument a coal-ash spewing factory owner in London a hundred years ago made - "there is so much air out there, I'm only polluting a little of it" - and look what happened in London, and by extension the rest of the world. Reefs have an incredible amount of human, and non-human pressures - from ocean acidification, ocean temperature rise, agricultural run-off, disruption of food web imbalance by all the above (i.e. overfishing removing a key species that vastly impacts ability of a reef to thrive - COT starfish/urchin decimation, etc.) that taken all together are outpacing reef's ability to adapt. If we can use manmade rock, and take even a tiny bit of pressure off reefs - why wouldn't we? Same for coral aquaculture - don't we have the responsibility to pay $10 more for a frag if it prevents a small pressure on wild collection? (Not to mention that the aquacultured frag probably looks better, is pre-selected for tank life, and has a higher percentage chance of surviving in our tanks, probably saving you money in the long run). While I understand your perspective on trying to ensure our tanks are diverse and interesting, I absolutely believe that we can still accomplish this. I just changed my screen name to ReefEco, after being on the forum for 15 years, in part because the 300gallon dream tank I'm planning will be specifically geared toward demonstrating that we can achieve this - with as little impact on the wild as possible. I already know that I can build the tank with zero coral taken from the ocean (which is easy now a day), fish is a little harder and there may be some compromises there. If you haven't already, check out IPSF.com - Indo Pacific Sea Farms, which farms similar flora and fauna that would come in on live rock. I've used them many times to successfully inoculate dry sand and manmade rock - captive raised snails, pods, algae, live sand starters, even small PVC plates with coralline on them to introduce that into your tank. And a can totally guarantee you that with a chisel, epoxy, and a little time, you can create from manmade rock (like BRS's reef saver) an aquascape that is stunning - and even more interesting than could be possible with just chunks of wild live rock. Give it a try!

I guess saying that tanks are going to become bland/sterile wasn't the right wording. Tanks are going to become one in the same would be a little bit better. With wild collection of rock, corals and fish slowly being cut off, we'll eventually get to the point that we will no longer have biodiversity in the aquarium trade. You will have a finite selection of rocks, corals and fish to choose from.

I can't really accept that factories burning coal is equatable with SW reefkeeping. Everyone needs the by-products of coal (electricity, warmth, energy, etc) to survive. Not everyone needs a SW aquarium. The coal burning industry is large enough to make a difference. The aquarium trade is not.

There will always be ways to make your tank unique. But we are certainly making it much, much harder on ourselves without much reason beyond feel-good stories.

I'm also fairly new to the hobby so I'll add my 2 cents....

I've heard from older reefers that "once upon a time" there was this other-worldly live rock available and I have to admit that because I've never seen that live rock, I just don't know what they're talking about. Like the OP said, what live rock I have seen is not impressive at all. It certainly doesn't look different from the Reefsaver dry rock that I've had in my tank for the last 18 months.

I'm guessing there was a time when you could get rock with tons of coral and plants and hitchhikers sent to your doorstep? Need a little history lesson I suppose.

My opinion is that this hobby is already in danger of being made illegal due to a number of different problems, not just live rock collection. I don't want to tempt the powers that be into shutting it down entirely. Especially not when I can build a really nice looking tank using reefsaver dry rock that has no phosphates, no bad hitchhikers, no nuisance algae, etc....

The only difference is the immediate gratification factor. You have to wait for dry rock to become encrusted with all kinds of life. But isn't waiting something we have to do a lot of in this hobby anyway? If you buy a piece of coral, you'll have to wait for it to grow out and look nice, for example. My tank didn't look like much at all until it passed the 1 yr mark. Now, it's respectable, not TOTM quality, but also not just a glass box full of water with some funny looking "growths" on the rock.

It's not a political issue for me either, we have to take better care of the ocean. I can't imagine what it'd be like if it was illegal to keep an aquarium or go diving or something. I would hate that.

Shapes, colors, fauna and pricing. All the things live rock used to be.

The hobby is in danger of being shut down mostly due to poor oversight and misinformation. The Aquarium trade has no champions that will go to bat for them. Instead, we have companies like Snorkel Bob, PETA, EDF, FTF, that have invested millions of dollars in attempt to shut down the aquarium trade, for personal gain. It's similar to the recreational fishing quotas for Red Snappers in the Gulf of Mexico. You have companies spending millions of dollars to influence politicians to make it illegal for recreational fisherman to keep snapper. Why? So they can sell trips on their charter/headboats, or sell red snapper to wholesalers at $25/lb. It's done for profit, but it's done under the guise of conservation.

It is not hard to sustainably collect fish, corals or rock, and have no noticeable effect on wild populations. We just have to make sure it is done sustainably and ethically. We can't allow dynamite or cyanide collectors to flurish. We can't pull 10,000,000 pieces of coral off reefs every year. But that's not saying we can't do it in a manner that's sustainable.

 

[liverock]

I purposely left out maricultured live rock on purpose. I would ask where the source rocks came from? Looking at TBS' website, they say their original source rock is Bahamian Coral Rock.

watch this video....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9d3CZwHdOI

 

[Ztous]

How is the hobby in danger of being shut down? Seriously it's been brought up multiple times in this thread is there some sort of source for this? I'm genuinely asking throw me a link.

As for the live rock thing places like Tampa Bay Saltwater seem like the future to me. Using mined rock or man made rock and growing life on the rock. Want a cheap rock buy a single year batch, want a surplus of life then buy a 3rd year batch and just to clarify I have no idea if that's how it works more how I envision it in a perfect world. It's like Christmas trees they are wasteful so rather then having every other guy wander into the woods with an axe we now have an industry formed around it.

 

[ktownhero]

:fish1: A lot more live rock that is collected from the various islands in the Pacific, is used for building material and roadways, on these various islands then all the live rock ever collected for the aquarium trade.

And if everyone is jumping off a bridge, you would too? lol

Not trying to rag on you, I just think it's a good thing that this hobby has become more sustainable and it should continue going in that direction, not backwards.

 

[liverock]

and the end is near...for Pukani

and the end is near...for Pukani

I purposely left out maricultured live rock on purpose. I would ask where the source rocks came from? Looking at TBS' website, they say their original source rock is Bahamian Coral Rock.

watch this video....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9d3CZwHdOI

Like all wild rock that was imported from overseas...Pukani will soon join the ranks of becoming illegal to import, due to the source country's allocations of 'collectable' rock, and pressure from environmentalists, as in what happened to Marshall islands rock, Tonga, Vanuatu, and many other countries that 'used' to harvest and sell wild rock.

Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com