Why are many people such control freaks?

I want as much biodiversity as possible. If it were possible to keep them in check I would even like to be able to keep aiptasia and majanos. Of course it is not easy to keep them in check though I have seen some amazing majanos I almost would not mind seeing a lot of. I also have some interesting featherdusters. Some of them have red crowns and several have clear colored crowns that are two inches in diameter. I also love the huge anthopods I have. There are snails breeding and babies thriving. These things fascinate me as much as my corals, fish, etc.
 
Back in my day..... you could buy very few corals or anemones. What you got was the diversity of the life from the rock. What passes for live rock now, we would not even have bought as base rock!. Our rock would be 100% ricordia or sea mat poly covererd. Or plant rock, or sponge rock etc. I guess my point is- the hobby was started by the hitchhikers, because thats all we had!
 
I had 58 different species of hitchhikers in my live rock, all but two (aiptasia and caulerpa) beneficial. I lost them when my rock cooked during a house move. I have never liked my tank as much since.
 
Live rock can be a double edged sword but IMO it's a gamble that often works in our favor.

I started my tank with mostly dry rock (due to cost) and seeded it with some live rock. I got a TON of beneficial critters and a few hydroids which was a great deal. A little while later, I bought a few pieces of live rock from a new supplier I found out about and my tank ended up with small mysis-like shrimp that would come out at night and swim all around the water column (hooray) and a TON of brown flatworms (aw crap).

While we're on the topic of control freaks, what really gets to me is people who try to force anemones to stay in one place by stacking rocks on them, gluing them or tying them up with string.
 
I say if it does not harm the things you want than it can stay. I like the little things I find on my live rock. I still wonder if everything I see in my tank has been identified by man kind. Like its somthing yet to be discovered.
 
My first hitchhiker was a plate coral that I watched grow from a super tiny transparent unreognizable blob. It grew, finally dropped its foot and tumbled to the sandbed, which is when I realized what it really was (first time it was hard). Now another plate has grown out of the original foot so I have 2 now!

Anything bad came from corals, the little crevices under acro colonies & not dipping & QT'ing corals.
 
Had no hitchhikers. Started with dead rock from the keys. Then I introduced some frags with hair algae. The joy.
 
SushiGirl said:
I've seen very few tanks crash or be destroyed due to a pest. And those that have, 99% of them the pest came from a frag & not from live rock.

If your end goal is to have a beautiful tank full of healthy corals & fish, you're missing out by not having biodiversity.

The one piece of advice I absolutely hate to see on any reef tank forum, and usually from newbies, is "when in doubt, kill it."
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I have seen the opposite, yes im one of those "if in doubt get it out of there". and not a chance on the 99% of pests coming in on a frag not live rock. i would bank on 99.5% coming from live rock. this is the number one cause. this is why we get dead rock and seed it. this is how we infest our tanks with everything under the sun. and sorry, im not a newbie. the worst advice you could ever give is, "its fine, just drop it in, dont worry about that stuff" lol.
 
SoLiD said:
I have a friend who started a 340 Gallon Tank with 300 pounds of Dry Marco Rock. His tank is full of Red Flat Worms and Aiptasia. Case and Point, it's not the live rock, it's usually the corals that get put in.
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It isn't even that. Tanks do not get over run by Aiptasia because it was introduced. It happens because we do nothing about it untill it is too late.

Almost all hikers are good and almost all that are not are easy to deal with IF we do it right away and now. If we wait 9 months before writing a post on RC about how Aiptasia from LR killed our tanks and then another 3 months before trying to fix the problem the tank was probably doomed with or without some hikers.
 
Mr. Bill said:
Absolutely correct.

My current tank was started with all dry rock and substrate. The biodiversity I have came from the LR rubble on which my corals were attached (Not found anything bad either, BTW).

FTR, I've had far more trouble with alleged "reef safe" crustaceans that I added intentionally than anything else.
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kind of what we are talking about isnt it. "Alleged reef safe crustaceans" but you say they only come in on frags or intensional
 
Lol, it sure does - but my issue was that people want to kill stuff before they even know what it is.

I think my opinion on the matter is clear - all the little stuff you find on live rock is about half of what makes this hobby so interesting for me.

As for pests: I got Bryopsis and Dictyota on frag plugs and had a hell of a time getting rid of them (the seller scraped it off as well as he could so I didn't see it, but ofc it grew back in my tank...). But even if I had gotten those pests on live rock I'd still go that route.

I'm currently curing some live rock in my office tank and have seen a mantis shrimp. I researched and what it looks like he belongs to a species that gets about an inch long and can't even kill adult snails, so I'll leave him in the tank and am currently even feeding him mysis. I'm not crazy - if he was a risk for the live stock I want to keep he'd get his own little tank - but as it is he will be one of the animals I keep in that tank. I got zoanthids and lps on the live rock as well. And lots of beautiful digitate coralline algae, a baby astrea snail, stomatellas and lots of worms and small crustaceans. If any of those or other things I didn't see yet will become a problem I'll deal with it...
 
so whats your point. you feel the odd mantis, astrea snail, stomatellas and lots of worms and small crustaceans, are all things you enjoy. what about the common house fly, daddy long leg, ear wigs. do you know centipeeds eat cockroach eggs. these are also things i squish when i get the chance. cause i dont want them around. so i guess im a control freak. but my wife wont let me hold the converter.
 
I don't like flies but I have some zebra spiders on my balcony every summer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_spider ) which I find fascinating.

As I explained, I get joy out of watching copepods, worms, and "stuff" in my tanks. I like my corals, inverts and fish as well - that's not mutually exclusive. All those things are part of my reef tanks. Otherwise I'd call it a FACOWLR tank (fish & corals only withEDIT:without live rock).
 
""I get joy out of watching copepods, worms, and "stuff" in my tanks. "" and its great to have control what is in there isnt it.
 
I have control over what I do (i.e. add live rock to the tank) but not over what grows from the live rock. So I don't really get your argument...
 
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