I planned on doing a three month update originally, but you know how that goes. It's actually been a little over seven months since I picked up the first half of my package but that's close enough. I'll start from the beginning.
The Tank
I bought my 220G tank at the LFS on May 16, 2003. I had them drill three holes in the bottom at one end. The plan was to set
the tank up so it would be viewable from the front, back and one end. I spent the next two months building a stand and
researching all the other pieces I'd need to complete the tank. I ended up with three Iwaki MD 55 pumps, two running closed circuit loops thru two SCWD's each and the third functioning as the return from my two 17G Rubbermaid sumps. My neighbors had
recently upgraded their pond and had given me the old one which happened to be a 50G Rubbermaid agricultural tub. I really
liked the idea of having mangroves growing in my house so I decided to setup a remote refugium using the tub. After a lot of research
(and confusion) I finally decided on T5 lighting. I got 8x39W (3') T5's from Reefgeek, figuring I could add more later if I needed them. Rounding out the equipment was a Red Sea Berlin Turbo XL skimmer (later tossed for a Euroreef Es8-3+ which is truly an excellent piece of equipment), countless PVC fittings and seemingly several miles of tubing. I built my own overflow box out of acrylic, built the stand using 2x4's and plywood and became an expert at finding bizarre combinations of PVC fittings at Home Depot.
Decisions, Decisions
In my spare time I was researching how I would stock the tank. A friend pointed out the TBS web site and, after looking it over it sounded like a great idea, and a reasonable price. Further research, however, had me thinking twice. It was like the lighting confusion all over again. On the plus side was the fact that TBS rock was aquacultured which eliminated the concern of removing LR from the reef environment. Also, I liked the idea of being able to get the rock in my tank the day after it came out of the ocean. First, though, I'd have to research all the negative things I'd heard about Florida aquacultured LR. I will say that I couldn't find any negative feedback on TBS itself, a rarity in this hobby. The bad things I heard about aquaculture rock were, in order of concern. The first is that FL aquaculture LR is much denser than pacific rock therefore more is required to provide an adequate biological filter and it takes more to build an aquascape. Second was that the rock didn't have interesting shapes and last was that there are lot's of unwanted hitchhikers in the rock.
I was most concerned about the biological filtering capacity until I read this It's pretty long but basically they determined that there was no difference in biological filtering capacity of aquacultured LR compared to that of wild collected LR. Try as a might I
couldn't find any actual data on the density of various types of LR, and I still haven't. I wasn't really too concerned about this since I didn't really want to fill my tank completely with rock anyway, so I figured I'd take my chances on this one. As
far as the shape of the rocks is concerned I looked at pictures of the rock on TBS' as well as other FL aquaculture LR supplier websites and decided that this fear was also largely unfounded. So I finally decided that TBS LR was the way to go.
Then more confusion. The critter package. My big concerns were the cucumbers and the hermits, all 440 of them. Of course the
concern about the cucumbers was about holothurins, the poisons that they use for self defense. I'd read many horror stories about cucumbers ejecting their intestines or wandering into pump intakes and poisoning entire tanks. Reading a bit more
(particularly Anthony Calfo and Bob Fenner's new "Reef Invertebrates" book) dismissed these concerns. It turns out that the cucumbers that are included in the TBS package are not particularly toxic and that the whole "cucumber as tank killer" legend is probably at least a bit overblown. Next was the hermits. I couldn't find any other source recommending so many hermits (two per gallon) so I was pretty leary of what all those critters might do in my tank. I finally figured at worst I could always transfer a bunch to my quarrantine tank or maybe try to give them to friends or the LFS.
The First Half
So the decision was made, TBS live rock it would be. By the time I called TBS to find out my options for getting my rock it was mid July. I decided to drive over from Miami (about 4 hrs) and pick it up myself so I called and made an appointment with
Mary for July 26. I removed all the seats (except the driver's) from my Chevy Metro and loaded it up with coolers and a trash
can and headed out for Tampa. I got there around noon and started loading up the coolers. 220 pounds of rock later I was
starting to worry less about how well it would fill my tank and more about whether my car would actually move with all this
stuff in it. As we hauled the coolers out to the car Richard had a look of combined amazement, amusement and concern when he
saw what I planned to haul this stuff back across the state of Florida in. We managed to load all the rock and sand in the
car and fill the coolers with water without completely bottoming out the suspension. Then I drove back to Miami, carefully.
When I got home I rinsed all the rock with a powerhead in the trash can and carefully placed it in the tank. I decided to
place the rock on the bare tank bottom after having heard of avalanches from having placed rock on top of sand and critters
burrowing under it. After placing all the rock I eliminated any concern I'd had about the density of the rock. This was only
half of the rock and it was easily more than half of what I needed to build my aquascape. Next I added the sand as slowly as
I could but still managed to create a pretty major sandstorm in the tank. I'd kind of expected this so I wasn't too worried.
I left all the pumps off and went to bed around 3:00 AM. Next morning the tank had cleared significantly but was still pretty
cloudy. By that evening it had cleared enough that I could start to see all the life. It was amazing, and this was just the base rock. There were several kinds of sponges including a few different kinds of finger sponges, a couple kinds of encrusting sponges and some ball sponges. There were probably a couple dozen clams and oysters. A few small anemones would expand when it was light in the tank. There were three types of coral: Starlet coral (Siderastrea
radians), Tube coral (Cladocora arbuscula) and
Cup coral (Phyllangia americana americana). The more
I looked, the more I found. There were dozens of tiny starfish. I'd already gotten familiar with the crabs since some would fall off the rocks whenever they were out of water. There were three kinds of crabs:
Porcelain crabs (Petrolisthes sp.),
Clinging crabs (Mithrax forceps) and
Hairy crabs (Pilumnus floridanus?). There were also a few different types of tunicate. A few hermits and snails also managed to hitch a ride on some of the rocks. After struggling to figure out what everything was I finally found The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral by Paul Humann and Ned Deloach, an excellent set of books that has great pictures and brief descriptions of almost every animal common to Caribbean/Western Atlantic waters.
Then there were the clicks. Mostly when the lights were out. I'd heard all the Mantis Shrimp horror stories so I was at least
a little bit concerned. I made some traps with small water bottles with the tops cutoff and inverted, set them in the tank
with some cocktail shrimp inside, and waited.
The Cycle
Meanwhile I watched the tank parameters closely. I monitored Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitarates on a daily basis. The tank never
really went through much of a cycle. During the first week my ammonia peaked at less than 0.5 ppm and then my nitrites peaked at between 5 and 10 ppm. The nitrates then climbed to about 20ppm and have since dropped down around 5-10ppm where they seem to have stabilized. I guess moving all the rock completely submerged in coolers for less than five hours total kept the dieoff to a minimum.
The Mantis
While the tank was "cycling" I continued in my efforts to capture the Mantis. I was getting a little frustrated by this point, not having actually seen the little monster. Nor had I noticed any of the carnage reported by other's who'd had mantis stowaways. No broken hermit or snail shells, no broken barnacles, none that I could see anyway.
Finally some friends spotted a mantis while checking out the tank. Then another one. Then another. Uh-oh, we could pretty
much verify at least three of the stealthy little creatures. What to do?
I decided to play hardball with the little critters. That night I removed the rocks we had seen all of the mantis in and put
them in my refugium and set the traps. After about a week of failing to capture anything I'd pretty much given up. And then
the power went out. I hadn't completed the plumbing on my refugium yet so it would completely drain when the power went out (I needed to install a check valve). I had to get the rock out of there and into something that would hold water for the day
while I was at work so I put it all in a big cooler. And, lo and behold, guess who was left in the fuge when I pulled the last rock out. A single, lonely, very unhappy mantis. I took this as a complete success (never mind that there were still two left somewhere) and left for work feeling quite accomplished already.
The next day I bought a 10G tank for the mantis and set it up with some LR rubble and some sand. It seemed much happier once it got it's new home.
IME all the worry has tuned out to be for nothing. I eventually put the rocks back in the tank and after a few months the other two mantis have become more sociable. I feed them with tongs if they happen to come out while I'm feeding the tank. I'm sure they've killed a few hermits, but with 440 of them in the tank there's more than enough to go around. It actually turns out that they're probably the most interesting of all the critters. They're especially interesting if you can manage to catch one and put it in it's own small tank. They're really amazing little creatures.
The Second Half
I picked up the second half of my package on August 23rd. Rather than place all the rock in the tank that evening I decided to leave it in the coolers I used to transport it with some airstones and small powerheads. The critters, however, I acclimated and placed in the tank right away with the exception of the
Condy and
Beaded anemones which I put in a
quarrantine tank until I got the rest of the rock situated. One thing to watch out for here, especially if you have a big tank, is not to just drop the snails in. If they land upside down they can't turn over (not very Darwinian, is it?). I only realized this after I dumped about 20 or 30 of them and spent the next half hour turning them all right side up. I spent most of the next day arranging the rock in the tank. When I was done I had about 80 pounds of rock leftover. So much for the rock being too dense. I actually ended up filling more of my
tank than I really wanted too with less than 2lbs/gal of rock. I put the rest of the rock in a tupperware container with a powerhead and an airstone. I also had some left for my refugium. After a few days the water in the tub with the leftover rock got cloudy and started to stink. I think a cucumber died in one of the rocks and created a pretty nasty ammonia spike. Luckily it wasn't in my tank. I think if I get a package for another tank I'll definitely let the second half sit in a separate container for a few days before putting it in the tank just to make sure. The rock didn't really look as though it suffered much but there were some dead critters in the bottom of the tub.
How's It Doing?
I've had very few casualties over the seven months. I lost two or three cucumbers (with no drastic results). The cucumbers never really burrowed in the sand like I expected them to. They climbed around in the rocks and on the sides of the tank. Very rarely do I see one on the sandbed even. I'm not really sure how much good these things actually do, though I'm much less worried about them doing harm now. They're just a little more interesting than the overflow box as far as I'm concerned. I imagine I've lost a few hermits and snails though it's pretty hard to tell. I know I still have a bunch. If given my choice, I'd probably opt for more snails and fewer hermits. The saddest loss was the Condy. It appeared to be doing fine for the first few months, then it started contracting more often. Finally it just started to whither away until I took it out of the tank for fear of it poisoning the tank. I can't be certain, but I imagine that many of these meet the same fate in the hands of novices and in new tanks. The Beaded Anemone (Epicycstis crucifer) seems to be much hardier and is doing very well at this point. It didn't move anywhere near as much as the Condy did (it's only moved once) and it's always eaten well. I feed the Beaded anemone pretty much anything I'm feeding the tank: clam, mysis, shrimp, silversides, Formula one pellets. It eats pretty much anything I give it.
The Peppermint shrimp have become a slight menace. They've gotten much bolder and I catch them picking at some corals or the anemone from time to time. They'll also eat pretty much anything.
The Brittle Stars are probably the most aggressive feeders in the tank! They are truly voracious. They have an uncanny ability to detect food in the tank and will literally run across the tank at the first whiff of food. They'll also eat til they look like they're ready to pop.
As far as the crabs go you have the good the bad and the ugly, which would be the Porcelain crabs, the Clinging (Mithrax sp.) crabs and the
Hairy crabs in that order. The Porcelains are filter feeders, interesting and attractive to boot. The Clinging crabs seem to eat mostly algae but they'll definitely eat meat if they have the opportunity. I've caught them harrassing corals and anemones on occassion. They're not bad enough that I'm going to any effort to remove them, but if I get a chance I catch them and banish them to the 10G. The Hairy crabs are just plain nasty. I watched one of these pry snails off a rock and eat them. Not easy to catch but you really need to get them out of your tank.
Most of the finger type sponges have died while most of the encrusting and ball sponges have done fairly well. Also the
viscous sponges have done well. All the clams and oysters seem to be doing well.
The Tube and Cup corals seem to be fairly indestructible though they seem to appreciate small meaty snacks like Mysis. The
Starlet coral did not fare as well for me. It seems to be doing better now but initially much of it died off. I also feed it
now. It's pretty amazing to watch the tiny polyps devour a mysis shrimp.
I got a rock in my second half that had a decent sized
Rose coral (Manicina areolata, what everyone calls
the brain corals) but it had gotten beaten up a little. I'm glad to say that it has done very well and has grown considerably. It definitely likes to eat and I feed it small chunks of food or mysis several time a week. If it doesn't eat right away, blowing some juice from whatever I'm feeding over it will usually get it to extend it's feeding tentacles. I was also very happy to discover another Rose coral on a rock that I hadn't noticed. It was initially very small (about 3/4" across) but has now grown to about 1.25" and started to develop multiple lobes.
I was worried for awhile that I didn't see any pods. At about the three month mark though they started showing up in force. Now I have tons of them everywhere.
In Conclusion
All in all I'd have to say that my experience with TBS has been excellent. The product is truly superior in my mind and it is probably a net benefit to the environment in the long run, a big plus in my book. Also, Richard and the whole TBS crew are a
pleasure to deal with, all very nice people. I don't see why anyone would buy live rock anywhere else.
The Tank
I bought my 220G tank at the LFS on May 16, 2003. I had them drill three holes in the bottom at one end. The plan was to set
the tank up so it would be viewable from the front, back and one end. I spent the next two months building a stand and
researching all the other pieces I'd need to complete the tank. I ended up with three Iwaki MD 55 pumps, two running closed circuit loops thru two SCWD's each and the third functioning as the return from my two 17G Rubbermaid sumps. My neighbors had
recently upgraded their pond and had given me the old one which happened to be a 50G Rubbermaid agricultural tub. I really
liked the idea of having mangroves growing in my house so I decided to setup a remote refugium using the tub. After a lot of research
(and confusion) I finally decided on T5 lighting. I got 8x39W (3') T5's from Reefgeek, figuring I could add more later if I needed them. Rounding out the equipment was a Red Sea Berlin Turbo XL skimmer (later tossed for a Euroreef Es8-3+ which is truly an excellent piece of equipment), countless PVC fittings and seemingly several miles of tubing. I built my own overflow box out of acrylic, built the stand using 2x4's and plywood and became an expert at finding bizarre combinations of PVC fittings at Home Depot.
Decisions, Decisions
In my spare time I was researching how I would stock the tank. A friend pointed out the TBS web site and, after looking it over it sounded like a great idea, and a reasonable price. Further research, however, had me thinking twice. It was like the lighting confusion all over again. On the plus side was the fact that TBS rock was aquacultured which eliminated the concern of removing LR from the reef environment. Also, I liked the idea of being able to get the rock in my tank the day after it came out of the ocean. First, though, I'd have to research all the negative things I'd heard about Florida aquacultured LR. I will say that I couldn't find any negative feedback on TBS itself, a rarity in this hobby. The bad things I heard about aquaculture rock were, in order of concern. The first is that FL aquaculture LR is much denser than pacific rock therefore more is required to provide an adequate biological filter and it takes more to build an aquascape. Second was that the rock didn't have interesting shapes and last was that there are lot's of unwanted hitchhikers in the rock.
I was most concerned about the biological filtering capacity until I read this It's pretty long but basically they determined that there was no difference in biological filtering capacity of aquacultured LR compared to that of wild collected LR. Try as a might I
couldn't find any actual data on the density of various types of LR, and I still haven't. I wasn't really too concerned about this since I didn't really want to fill my tank completely with rock anyway, so I figured I'd take my chances on this one. As
far as the shape of the rocks is concerned I looked at pictures of the rock on TBS' as well as other FL aquaculture LR supplier websites and decided that this fear was also largely unfounded. So I finally decided that TBS LR was the way to go.
Then more confusion. The critter package. My big concerns were the cucumbers and the hermits, all 440 of them. Of course the
concern about the cucumbers was about holothurins, the poisons that they use for self defense. I'd read many horror stories about cucumbers ejecting their intestines or wandering into pump intakes and poisoning entire tanks. Reading a bit more
(particularly Anthony Calfo and Bob Fenner's new "Reef Invertebrates" book) dismissed these concerns. It turns out that the cucumbers that are included in the TBS package are not particularly toxic and that the whole "cucumber as tank killer" legend is probably at least a bit overblown. Next was the hermits. I couldn't find any other source recommending so many hermits (two per gallon) so I was pretty leary of what all those critters might do in my tank. I finally figured at worst I could always transfer a bunch to my quarrantine tank or maybe try to give them to friends or the LFS.
The First Half
So the decision was made, TBS live rock it would be. By the time I called TBS to find out my options for getting my rock it was mid July. I decided to drive over from Miami (about 4 hrs) and pick it up myself so I called and made an appointment with
Mary for July 26. I removed all the seats (except the driver's) from my Chevy Metro and loaded it up with coolers and a trash
can and headed out for Tampa. I got there around noon and started loading up the coolers. 220 pounds of rock later I was
starting to worry less about how well it would fill my tank and more about whether my car would actually move with all this
stuff in it. As we hauled the coolers out to the car Richard had a look of combined amazement, amusement and concern when he
saw what I planned to haul this stuff back across the state of Florida in. We managed to load all the rock and sand in the
car and fill the coolers with water without completely bottoming out the suspension. Then I drove back to Miami, carefully.
When I got home I rinsed all the rock with a powerhead in the trash can and carefully placed it in the tank. I decided to
place the rock on the bare tank bottom after having heard of avalanches from having placed rock on top of sand and critters
burrowing under it. After placing all the rock I eliminated any concern I'd had about the density of the rock. This was only
half of the rock and it was easily more than half of what I needed to build my aquascape. Next I added the sand as slowly as
I could but still managed to create a pretty major sandstorm in the tank. I'd kind of expected this so I wasn't too worried.
I left all the pumps off and went to bed around 3:00 AM. Next morning the tank had cleared significantly but was still pretty
cloudy. By that evening it had cleared enough that I could start to see all the life. It was amazing, and this was just the base rock. There were several kinds of sponges including a few different kinds of finger sponges, a couple kinds of encrusting sponges and some ball sponges. There were probably a couple dozen clams and oysters. A few small anemones would expand when it was light in the tank. There were three types of coral: Starlet coral (Siderastrea
radians), Tube coral (Cladocora arbuscula) and
Cup coral (Phyllangia americana americana). The more
I looked, the more I found. There were dozens of tiny starfish. I'd already gotten familiar with the crabs since some would fall off the rocks whenever they were out of water. There were three kinds of crabs:
Porcelain crabs (Petrolisthes sp.),
Clinging crabs (Mithrax forceps) and
Hairy crabs (Pilumnus floridanus?). There were also a few different types of tunicate. A few hermits and snails also managed to hitch a ride on some of the rocks. After struggling to figure out what everything was I finally found The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral by Paul Humann and Ned Deloach, an excellent set of books that has great pictures and brief descriptions of almost every animal common to Caribbean/Western Atlantic waters.
Then there were the clicks. Mostly when the lights were out. I'd heard all the Mantis Shrimp horror stories so I was at least
a little bit concerned. I made some traps with small water bottles with the tops cutoff and inverted, set them in the tank
with some cocktail shrimp inside, and waited.
The Cycle
Meanwhile I watched the tank parameters closely. I monitored Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitarates on a daily basis. The tank never
really went through much of a cycle. During the first week my ammonia peaked at less than 0.5 ppm and then my nitrites peaked at between 5 and 10 ppm. The nitrates then climbed to about 20ppm and have since dropped down around 5-10ppm where they seem to have stabilized. I guess moving all the rock completely submerged in coolers for less than five hours total kept the dieoff to a minimum.
The Mantis
While the tank was "cycling" I continued in my efforts to capture the Mantis. I was getting a little frustrated by this point, not having actually seen the little monster. Nor had I noticed any of the carnage reported by other's who'd had mantis stowaways. No broken hermit or snail shells, no broken barnacles, none that I could see anyway.
Finally some friends spotted a mantis while checking out the tank. Then another one. Then another. Uh-oh, we could pretty
much verify at least three of the stealthy little creatures. What to do?
I decided to play hardball with the little critters. That night I removed the rocks we had seen all of the mantis in and put
them in my refugium and set the traps. After about a week of failing to capture anything I'd pretty much given up. And then
the power went out. I hadn't completed the plumbing on my refugium yet so it would completely drain when the power went out (I needed to install a check valve). I had to get the rock out of there and into something that would hold water for the day
while I was at work so I put it all in a big cooler. And, lo and behold, guess who was left in the fuge when I pulled the last rock out. A single, lonely, very unhappy mantis. I took this as a complete success (never mind that there were still two left somewhere) and left for work feeling quite accomplished already.
The next day I bought a 10G tank for the mantis and set it up with some LR rubble and some sand. It seemed much happier once it got it's new home.
IME all the worry has tuned out to be for nothing. I eventually put the rocks back in the tank and after a few months the other two mantis have become more sociable. I feed them with tongs if they happen to come out while I'm feeding the tank. I'm sure they've killed a few hermits, but with 440 of them in the tank there's more than enough to go around. It actually turns out that they're probably the most interesting of all the critters. They're especially interesting if you can manage to catch one and put it in it's own small tank. They're really amazing little creatures.
The Second Half
I picked up the second half of my package on August 23rd. Rather than place all the rock in the tank that evening I decided to leave it in the coolers I used to transport it with some airstones and small powerheads. The critters, however, I acclimated and placed in the tank right away with the exception of the
Condy and
Beaded anemones which I put in a
quarrantine tank until I got the rest of the rock situated. One thing to watch out for here, especially if you have a big tank, is not to just drop the snails in. If they land upside down they can't turn over (not very Darwinian, is it?). I only realized this after I dumped about 20 or 30 of them and spent the next half hour turning them all right side up. I spent most of the next day arranging the rock in the tank. When I was done I had about 80 pounds of rock leftover. So much for the rock being too dense. I actually ended up filling more of my
tank than I really wanted too with less than 2lbs/gal of rock. I put the rest of the rock in a tupperware container with a powerhead and an airstone. I also had some left for my refugium. After a few days the water in the tub with the leftover rock got cloudy and started to stink. I think a cucumber died in one of the rocks and created a pretty nasty ammonia spike. Luckily it wasn't in my tank. I think if I get a package for another tank I'll definitely let the second half sit in a separate container for a few days before putting it in the tank just to make sure. The rock didn't really look as though it suffered much but there were some dead critters in the bottom of the tub.
How's It Doing?
I've had very few casualties over the seven months. I lost two or three cucumbers (with no drastic results). The cucumbers never really burrowed in the sand like I expected them to. They climbed around in the rocks and on the sides of the tank. Very rarely do I see one on the sandbed even. I'm not really sure how much good these things actually do, though I'm much less worried about them doing harm now. They're just a little more interesting than the overflow box as far as I'm concerned. I imagine I've lost a few hermits and snails though it's pretty hard to tell. I know I still have a bunch. If given my choice, I'd probably opt for more snails and fewer hermits. The saddest loss was the Condy. It appeared to be doing fine for the first few months, then it started contracting more often. Finally it just started to whither away until I took it out of the tank for fear of it poisoning the tank. I can't be certain, but I imagine that many of these meet the same fate in the hands of novices and in new tanks. The Beaded Anemone (Epicycstis crucifer) seems to be much hardier and is doing very well at this point. It didn't move anywhere near as much as the Condy did (it's only moved once) and it's always eaten well. I feed the Beaded anemone pretty much anything I'm feeding the tank: clam, mysis, shrimp, silversides, Formula one pellets. It eats pretty much anything I give it.
The Peppermint shrimp have become a slight menace. They've gotten much bolder and I catch them picking at some corals or the anemone from time to time. They'll also eat pretty much anything.
The Brittle Stars are probably the most aggressive feeders in the tank! They are truly voracious. They have an uncanny ability to detect food in the tank and will literally run across the tank at the first whiff of food. They'll also eat til they look like they're ready to pop.
As far as the crabs go you have the good the bad and the ugly, which would be the Porcelain crabs, the Clinging (Mithrax sp.) crabs and the
Hairy crabs in that order. The Porcelains are filter feeders, interesting and attractive to boot. The Clinging crabs seem to eat mostly algae but they'll definitely eat meat if they have the opportunity. I've caught them harrassing corals and anemones on occassion. They're not bad enough that I'm going to any effort to remove them, but if I get a chance I catch them and banish them to the 10G. The Hairy crabs are just plain nasty. I watched one of these pry snails off a rock and eat them. Not easy to catch but you really need to get them out of your tank.
Most of the finger type sponges have died while most of the encrusting and ball sponges have done fairly well. Also the
viscous sponges have done well. All the clams and oysters seem to be doing well.
The Tube and Cup corals seem to be fairly indestructible though they seem to appreciate small meaty snacks like Mysis. The
Starlet coral did not fare as well for me. It seems to be doing better now but initially much of it died off. I also feed it
now. It's pretty amazing to watch the tiny polyps devour a mysis shrimp.
I got a rock in my second half that had a decent sized
Rose coral (Manicina areolata, what everyone calls
the brain corals) but it had gotten beaten up a little. I'm glad to say that it has done very well and has grown considerably. It definitely likes to eat and I feed it small chunks of food or mysis several time a week. If it doesn't eat right away, blowing some juice from whatever I'm feeding over it will usually get it to extend it's feeding tentacles. I was also very happy to discover another Rose coral on a rock that I hadn't noticed. It was initially very small (about 3/4" across) but has now grown to about 1.25" and started to develop multiple lobes.
I was worried for awhile that I didn't see any pods. At about the three month mark though they started showing up in force. Now I have tons of them everywhere.
In Conclusion
All in all I'd have to say that my experience with TBS has been excellent. The product is truly superior in my mind and it is probably a net benefit to the environment in the long run, a big plus in my book. Also, Richard and the whole TBS crew are a
pleasure to deal with, all very nice people. I don't see why anyone would buy live rock anywhere else.
Of the current looks of the rocks I mean. 
