whoa living sea!

[mdcorcoran]

I just called the living sea aquarium in park ridge and I think I'm about to head down there to take advantage of their live rock prices! They are good through the end of October I think, but with 10LB or more of FIJI it is 4.49/LB and Florida is 3.49!! Pretty sweet if you ask me.

 

[joroscoe]

that's a great retail price. however, i bet you can get much nicer rock for even cheaper here.

 

[Rivenjim]

when you see it you might consider not buying it.. unless you want to use it as base rock.

 

[eddiebfl]

Yup! The live rock at living sea is not alive at all. Its brown with no coraline algea growth.

 

[flapjack1439]

Try Coral Paradise. Best live rock around and reasonable.

http://www.coralparadise.org/

 

[gotfish8]

real nice rock for $3 a pound

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=954674

 

[Steverino]

The Living Sea rock is always in the $4.50 lb price for the bottom of the quality pile, and yes it is brown and good for base rock. I don't think I saw much purpleish color to it about 1 week ago. Coral Paradise does indeed have some better looking stuff, but I believe it is up around $6.50 or $7/lb.

 

[nmprisons]

There live rock is pretty horrible. It basically looks dead, with soem brown algae on it.

 

[criccio]

I bet you get a bunch of free little brown anemones on it.

 

[roberts722]

Just because rock does not have coraline algae on it does not mean that it is not alive. I don't know anything about the rock at Living Sea but it still may be "alive" even without the coraline.

Just a thought...

 

[rockdiver]

Tampabay Saltwater now thats alive rock lol

 

[desjardiniidj]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8382166#post8382166 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by criccio
I bet you get a bunch of free little brown anemones on it.

Score! lol

 

[jcm1229]

I've bought pieces of LR over the years from LivingSea (partly because its around the corner from my house!). Some is better than others. About 3 years ago, they had some Bali live rock! It was very porous, covered with corraline and had lots of life.

I've found their rock to be fine. It may not look the best in the vat, but many times its been in there only a couple of days. Once I've had it in my tank, I've had plenty of tube worm, some button polyps and other things pop up.

If you want cheap exotic rock buy it online, if you want rock that's already corraline covered - buy it somewhere else. I look for rock for certain shapes. sizez etc ... I'm not worried about the rock becoming corraline covered - that will happen in my tank!

 

[joroscoe]

www.premiumaquatics.com
nuff said

 

[quallabear]

Try Sho tank in mundelein. lots of nice branch and deep water Tonga. about $6 lb

 

[mdcorcoran]

I called Sho-Tank and they said their rock ranges from 3-6/LB, with the three dollar rock being small rocks and "Used Rock"....anybody know more about their "used rock"?

 

[jmicky41]

One time I scored some "used" tonga deepwater that he took out of his display tank for $3 - pretty cool rock. I think that might have been the exception though. As far as the Living Sea rock goes, if you like the shapes - buy it. My favorite pieces of rock were completely white/brown when I bought them, but they color up quickly under decent lights and water. Some rock I bought fully colored, but the coralline quickly died back/ bleached only to be replaced by corallines that found my tank to their liking. Besides shape, density is important too. Some rock weighs a ton for it's size, some like Bali are incredibly light.

 

[quallabear]

used rock is stuff he has taken out of his tanks or people have traded into him. sometimes nice other times covered in algae, might need to be cured. most of his other rock you can just drop right into your tank. look through the 3 dollar rock you can find some nice suff.

 

[Ramble On Rose]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8382770#post8382770 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jcm1229
I've bought pieces of LR over the years from LivingSea (partly because its around the corner from my house!). Some is better than others. About 3 years ago, they had some Bali live rock! It was very porous, covered with corraline and had lots of life.

I've found their rock to be fine. It may not look the best in the vat, but many times its been in there only a couple of days. Once I've had it in my tank, I've had plenty of tube worm, some button polyps and other things pop up.

If you want cheap exotic rock buy it online, if you want rock that's already corraline covered - buy it somewhere else. I look for rock for certain shapes. sizez etc ... I'm not worried about the rock becoming corraline covered - that will happen in my tank!

I completely agree. I originally bought about 50 lbs of rock from there due to lack of knowledge when first starting out and it is closest LFS to my house. I have to say even now, I am pretty pleased with what I got. The "amount of life" on the rock seems like a pretty silly arguement as far as reasons to choose rock, especially with the bare bottom/cooked rock philosphy spreading like wild fire. Regardless two pieces of rock bought from the different places will have the same life after just a few a months in the tank. The pieces I got from living sea are personally my favorite shaped/sized pieces i have gotten. Yes they were not buldging with life like some of the tampa bay rock, but it did a fine job at seeding other base rock I had and contained plenty of life to start a tank.

 

[nmprisons]

I wasn't complaining about the LACK of life on their stuff, but rather the large amount of UNDESIREABLE life. The last time I was there, there stuff was covered in microalgae.