Vendors! Take care of the live rock!!!
 

Ok, this has been a long standing complaint of mine...

Why do vendors always get in a bunch of live rock from overseas plop it in a holding tank, and not give a popcorn fart if the ammonia spikes to 4 ppm?? Why oh why do you guys do this? Most vendors don't even have a skimmer on the holding tank, some don't put a heater in it, and some use tap water!!! Like seriously Mr Vendor, don't you know you're charging a PREMIUM for this stuff which happens to be the most important filtration "device" we will invest in often spending more money on rock than our skimmer, and you're not taking any procedures to promote a HEALTHY, LIVELY, CLEAN rock??

One day, I'm going to have my own store...things will be different!!!! :lol:

Come into Homes Alive in Lethbridge. Our rock tank is actually on old koi holding tank complete with internal sump, Protien skimmer, UV filter, heater and has T5HO lighting over it.

I find now a days vendors are charging premium prices for not so premium base rock while here on canreef you can find nice rock for half the cost. I dont complain much because I just buy it off other people. My last batch was 200 pounds I beleive from G1Gy and it was awesome. Loaded with crabs, snails, mushrooms, and zoanthids, that was real "Live Rock".

Ya, I buy all my live rock "used" too. I find as long as you know what you're looking for (and what you're NOT looking for!!) you can find MUUUUUCH higher quality rock for WAAAAY cheaper from established reefs.

If all else fails, I try to get the live rock right as they are unpacking it so it won't be subjected to the horrible confines of the polluted holding tank.

Its too bad you wernt closer you could come look at our stuff. Like I said we run it just like any other tank, skimmer uv. We have a few spares in the back room we are thinking of using as curing tubs then move the cured stuff onto the floor when its ready.

Not ALL vendors do that, I can attest to that and any of my customers will also agree as 90% of all the rock in the store is fair game to the customers. I can speak the same of some of the other LPS in the area.


I have seen the large holding tanks full of rock also like all of you.

That is why we try to keep our rock nice and healthy. Actually most of ours will be cured and clean when it is ready for sale. We have ours mainly in with the systems where we have our acclimized fish in.

We have 2 120 gal tanks with skimmers and heaters taking care of the "New" rock where we can actually cure them before they are introduced into our marine population.

Ken - BWA

Myka;
In all fairness your statement linking all vendors is like my saying
" All girls from Saskatoon make general assumptions" (which is not true).
You would not be taken as ASSUMING if you stated " A vendor I visited in Calgary , or Regina, or Saskatoon did etc., etc.

I do now agree all sellers of live rock should thrive to keep it in an environment that allows beneficial bacteria, pods, etc. to thrive. That said heaters, skimmers, and clean water are an essential.
One thing I do not agree with is Lighting on LR for resale in my care. My goal is to sell live rock that adds benefit to your tank immediately without adding ammonia. All die off will have already been processed. General fish systems with new fish arrivals is NOT a good place to store LR for customer sales.

And then you will get a chance to defend yourself from people that will link you with general accusations.

Thanks Myka Live Rock is such an import part of our systems and more care (even on my part) should be taken to ensure we utilize this limited resource to its fullest.

Kevin

^^ reasons why red coral is one of the best shops in town!

I do Agree with Myka. those people just starting out in the saltwater game get hosed by vendors that treat their rock in the manner suggested above. i remember when i started i bought mine from one of the chain stores. It came with no life, no algae, possibly no bacteria. With the knowledge i have now i feel very cheated by the whole experience

Let me guess, best products, best staff and lowest prices?? Now that's funny :lol: Good luck with that!

All businesses have overhead, and in order to compete in the market a business owner must reduce this overhead in ways he or she sees fit. Most will do this by focuses more certain products and not so much on others (specialization). Now a days you won't find a store that's the best at everything. In my mind I don't see a lot money making potential in live rock so why focus on that? Plus 95% of people don't care.

On a second note I see very little importance on having a skimmer on a live rock holding tank. Clean and warm saltwater is the only real requirement. If you keep volume small it's probably better to simply change the water completely every so often using discarded water from other systems.

I see very little benefit in anonymously cutting down vendors. It's pretty easy to sit back and complain about what others do yet what exactly have you done? You should open a store, I'm not sure why I didn't think of that myself, all you need is the highest overhead and lowest prices, it's so obvious :wink:

Kevin I wish more stores had your attitude for rock.. lighting is definatly not a good thing in new rock and should only be added well after all the algae and plants are gone. I know some people seam to like the leaf algae on there rock but personaly when I buy rock I want it clean with lots of bugs and a coraline, no mushrooms, ext.. and I donot believe it should be in tanks with fish at all, some places use tangs to hide algae on rocks.. the tangs keep it looking clean but the algar roots are there and when you get it home it goes nuts.

I think my ideal rock system would be three seperat systems. rock would come in to store and go to a back room system not available for sale. this system would be heated, tones of water flow and have major skimming but be in total darkness. I would probably leave it in this system for 2 months. from here it would go into a system with the same equipment but lit by actinic lighting only for another month and then finaly into the sale tanks. but I know this isn't reasonable for a lot of stores as they have to justify the cost per square foot and arn't willing to invest say 2 to 3K in rock they won't be able to sell for 3 months or even lay out the money to set up 3 different systems for one purpose.

Steve

It is very important.. if you have a good skimmer on your rock curing tank the vendor can save a lot of money in waterchanges and it is more efficent than doing the waterchanges also as it is continuiously removing the "crap" where the waterchanges will let the levels build up then gone. also there is a much higher survival rate for bugs when you use a skimmer as there is less shock to them due to waterchanges and less spiking of amonia, nitrate and nitrite. Just like in our tanks the more stable the better and the common problem is that people see rock as a decoration not as one of the most important biological additions to our tank.

It is attitiudes and lack of education in a lot of LFS' that cause this thinking and it is realy sad that people will spend thousands on corals and fish, but yet will find the most used oldest rock they can and just throw it in there. old rock is exactly that old rock.. it isn't wine it doesn't get better with age. its ability to filter and help to prevent algae declines with age.. it cazn be rejuvinated but this requires a lot of time and work and is called "cooking" the rock. I would never add rock to my system that has been in some one elses tank for a long time with out cooking it first.

Steve

I don't see it that way. The water conditions in any live rock tank will fluctuate. If you fill a tank with fresh shipped rock no skimmer is going to prevent ammonia and other harsh spikes. In my mind you're better just changing the water after the rock has settled in for a while, this will be much more effective than a skimmer.
Keeping things simple could be a better alternative, simply change the water as needed. If you setup something elaborate and complicated it will take more time and money to maintain it making your rock more expensive. Plus adding a skimmer could result in the thought that there is less demand for changing water which simply isn't the case. In either case it's far from a requirement.

If you spend 3 months curing your rock before resale you're spending 3 months of additional overhead on that inventory. From a business point of view not really a good thing as the rock is now worth more than you can sell it for. Take two batches of rock from the same source, one batch fully 100% cured and sell for $10/pound, the other lightly cured and sell for $7/pound. See what sells first and you'll see why most vendors don't pay too much attention to live rock. Price out weighs quality by a long shot in live rock, people will pay more for better rock in terms of shape but not so much in how it's cured. Simply put, people who pay less complain about quality and people who pay more complain about price.

I think people just enjoy blaming LFSs in general for all their hobby related problems which in my mind is taking the easy way out. You have to deal with whats available to you and make your own decisions, you always have a choice and ignorance is a poor excuse. Educate yourselves, make your own decisions and take responsibility for your actions otherwise jump of a bridge because I told you so :p

Glad you spoke up because I was going to say Blue World takes good care of their LR.

I believe Blue world has done just that, they really do have great staff, good products and great prices. So trust me it can be done :biggrin:

Nice poke but I'm taking best products at the best prices?? Good and great do not equal best. I'm sure the prices are good but I would bet stuff can be found cheaper elsewhere. You can't have the best of everything, sorry but it can't be done, at least not for long anyway.

Our LFS here has great products, service and prices too but some people still complain because one particular item is $1 cheaper at J&L.

well people who complain about that are just someone who is going to bitch about everything. Honestly if that’s all your trying to use as your argument

like come on do you actually expect them to check every store in every province to try and make sure they have the lowest price. I mean your taking a fish store not Wal-Mart.

I mean all is your doing in dissecting a statement. All a business can do is be competitively priced for the market. and carry a good selection of equipment or great selection. because hey not everyone wants to spend 1300$ on a bubble king protein skimmer and just wants a cheaper one. These people are running a business and I think there are a few out there who do a good job and I mean it would be stupid to go into a store and be like how could you mark things up. that would be like your boss saying to you hey um I know I pay you 40$ an hour but I mean I think you could live of 12$ an hour that’s fair right?

Exactly my points, my argument is for the LFS not against them. People do just like to complain about everything and stores do their best to compete but you simply can't be the best at everything, no small chain store can compete with Walmart prices or selection. The same comparison could be made in regards to certain fish stores, retail is retail.

this is where we will have to agree to disagree, I have cured with out a skimmer and with a skimmer.. much better results with the skimmer. problem with out it is that you are still going to expose your rock to much higher levels than you would with it. the other problem is wherew is all the junk the skimmer would pull out go if you don't use one. inside the rock and will start the plugging up phase.


thge only way just letting your rock soak in a container and changing the water will be cheaper is if you are lazy and or only doing one batch.

you figure 1000lbs of live rock which would be a normal size order is going to need 500gal of water to be in the holding area. so this is about 2.5 buckets of salt. to properly cure rock you need to do about 4 waterchanges so say.. 10 buckets of salt. now if you use a good skimmer you could easily cut out two of thoes waterchanges saving about 5 buckets of salt. which is a good chunk of money towards a good skimmer after only one batch.

and good skimming and dosing is very much a good way to reduce the amount of water changes required.. a water changed is to clean and replace, if you keep the water clean and replace elements you are acomplishing the exact same thing... In the 7 years I ran my big tank I started off with monthly waterchanges, then bi-monthly, then a few times a year, then to once a year.. no differance and everything thrived. now would I recomend this would out the use of a Ca reactor with good median and a good skimmer.. no.

as for water changes anyone who is doing 10% a month, or even a week and thinks they are doing good, better think again.. in order for any waterchange to do what people think they are doing you got to be going at least 50% preferably more





Um.. you need to re read.. that is what I said . that was only what I would like to do but as I said in the post it is not reasonable for a store due to the investment and time vs. proffit per sq^ft.

as for people like to blame there LFS.. up totaly agree, but also know there is a lot of bad advice from LFS out there and that a lot of people do look to there LFS as knowing what to do.. they are the professionals in this area are they not? so if you see what they are doing and there tanks look nice and you don't know about the 10 fish/ day they take out of there tanks dead, or that they lose 50% of there corals how do you know any better. The stores don't worry to much as these are losses and the amount of loss is small.. that coral some places are charging 110.00 for cost the store 5 to 10 bucks, most fish that are 80 to 150.. 5 to 15 bucks. plus shipping, but at 50 bucks shipping on a box that you can get 10 to 18 corals in that isn't realy much. now rock is a weird one as there is no loss to the store and they put more of a mark up on it that on the corals and fish, but the rock doesn't die.. and if it does then they just put it in with some new rock and bring it back so rock is a huge profit maker.

I don't need to see a store with the best products, lowest prices, ect.. what I would like to see is a store with knowalgeable mature staff that has exelent customer service and gives very good advice, heck even lets you know the different ways there are to skin a cat and lets you know where to find the information so tyou can make an informed discision. or even will engage in a discussion of a peticular method. prices,, they can be a little more as people value good, friendly, customer service and knowlage and that will compensate for a little higher price as long as it isn't outragious. I have though a couple times about opening a store myself, but in victoria the market wouldn't suppot it and I don't think there is anough of a market in kamloops either for a salt water only store.

Steve

your always going to have thoes people.. I have a friend who has never paid full price for anything.. I don't know how he does it but he gets discounts from anystore he goes to.

my personal theory on mail order from say J&L is that if I am paying so much plus 25 for shipping when I go into the LFS as long as it is under the total I would have paid with shipping I buy it there.. that allows the LFS to have prices that are a little higher and still get my business.

Steve

The thing that comes to my mind is that there are very different consumer expectations as to what constitutes "live rock".

For me...I would want rock available to me as quickly as possible to preserve as much life as possible. That likely means getting the "good" life along with the "challenging" life. LR was/is the most expensive life in my tank. I would want it handled like very expensive fish from start to finish.

Others want their LR all "cured", or "cooked" by the store first. They don't want it to contain any kind of algae or life that might die off in their tanks. Some evaluate the quality of LR only by its porosity and shape.

So, I suppose a store has to make a decision about what their customers want from LR and attempt to handle and price it appropriately.

I can't really say anything bad about the LR from Red Coral... I had 80-85lbs in my 75G tank, and I NEVER saw a single bit of algae on it in the 9-10months that tank was running. I give credit to RC for how they process their LR when it comes in. They do a thorough job and charge an average price compared to other shops.


Certainly isn't fair to make a blanket statement to all vendors...

I didnt see any mention of LR being blanketed in aptasia.... Obviously aptasia exists in the wild and some of it could hitch a ride in on a shipment of LR. I can believe that. But when a LFS has a LR tank that doesnt have any aptasia and then a customer tears down their tank and sells/give their LR to the store which is blanketed in huge aptasia why would they put the two together? It wasnt only the LR tank that got it that day. They put that aptasia infested rock throughout all of their stores systems! Did I forget to mention that they ask $12/lbs for it too? Or $8/lbs if you buy over 20lbs... something like that.

At least I can be thankful that our LFS has a skimmer on their LR tank. Now if only they had a working skimmer on their coral tank...

exactly, and there is an easy solution for that. one store in Vic where I bought over 200 lbs of rock to originaly start my tank up only sold it by the box and what he would do is add 25 bucks/ box to the actual cost he incured to bring the rock in. so he would take orders untill he had a 5 box min (which usaly only took a week at that time.) then place the order. the next day his order was picked in jacarta or where ever and flowen out right away. that night the people who ordeed rock would meet at the store to get there rock. what we would do is open our boxes and take a look at the sizes and we would trade amongst ourselves so everyone went home with the sizes they wanted. this way usaly worked out to about 4 bucks a lb. if you wanted to hand select your chunks there were 3 other stores you could go to in Vic at that time.

I think a good thing would be to do both.. if you want the fresh uncured rock you could just tag onto a regular order and pick up your box when it comes in.. if you want to chose a specific piece then go to the LR tanks.

you mentiond you would like to see rock handles the same as expensive fish.. I wouldn't expeck a 400 buck fish to be plopped into a tank with no skimmer and bad water.. I also would insist on waiting at least a week to pick up the fish to ensure it was in good shape.

Steve

Agreed to disagree. Curing rock in the aquarium is somewhat different, you don't typically change more than 50% of the water at one time. If you cured your rock in a separate container (like many people do) you could simply change 100% of the water time and time again until you were satisfied. Your water volume would be small in comparison to the amount of rock you have or compared to your display tank volume. In such case I see little need for a skimmer and don't think it would be worth using. Curing rock in your display is different and could certainly benefit from a skimmer but this isn't the best way to cure rock.


I would argue a much smaller volume for that amount of rock. In addition you would need a skimmer rated for an equivalent of 1000 gallons to hand that much dead rock if not bigger. The cost of the skimmer, it's power consumption and maintenance would likely not pay for itself in a long time. Salt is fairly cheap to a vendor and could always use water changed from other systems for the live rock tank. Also no skimmer will replace water changes nor will it ever be as effective as removing nutrients and contaminants than the good old water change. I can guarantee you that any skimmer on a live rock tank will be more trouble than it's worth. Plus the skimmer seems to be the easy way out, using a skimmer and doing less water changes may be cheaper depending on how you look at it but certainly not better than changing all the water frequently. In terms of quality what is best? I would bet many vendors through little skimmers on there live rock tanks which are more decorative than anything, with the main purpose to impress customers.

That wasn't really referring to your post, just a general statement. However while on the subject if you agree a vendor can't possibly keep rock for long periods of time how could a skimmer possibly benefit such a system? Skimmers require time to remove nutrients while a simple 100% change removes them all in one go. Seems like a better solution in my mind. Skimmers simply aren't designed to remove large amounts of nutrients that quickly, they are steady state machines.


People at LFS are not professionals by any means in fact I don't know anyone who is a professional in that particular industry. How do you define professional?? Profit margins aren't large enough to employ such "professionals", you're stuck with minimum wage type employees who can bag a fish but certainly aren't experts. The only exception we get these days are the small chain stores which are run by the actual owner who tend to be very knowledgeable, however even with these stores it's only a matter of time before extra staff is brought in.

Of course we don't need the best of everything and that was certainly not my point. My point was that no store can be the best at everything and different stores will tend to focus more on certain things and not on others. This is why not all vendors will focus too much time and effort on live rock.

actualy by def they are professionals

"n - One who earns a living in a given or implied occupation"

I would never cure the rock in my tank, unless it was a brand new tank set up then why not.. the rock I have cured I have done so in a seperat tank for only the rock.. when I did just waterchanges I actualy had two tanks, when I saw a spike, I would rince the rock and move it to the new water.. then back again for the next spike.. when I did the skimmer method I had the added bonus of being able to keep snails and hermits in with the rock to clean it up with out any die off of the clean up crue. doing this the other way would have resulted in massive death of snails and some hermits.

now having said that I have never been accused of under skimming either :mrgreen:

at any rate, no store is going to do 100% water changes either.. to expensive. for one you got the water, the wages for the person doing it and the cost of the salt and wear and tear on the ro filters or DI canisters, electricity to heat the water, space for water while it is heating ect.. . Concider what a store will pay for a huge skimmer.. not near what they charge us and it is a write off as an operating cost. A relitivly new store in Vic has huge skimmers on there rock, they may do water changes also, but they seam to be providing the best enviorment they can.

As well when a store normaly gets rock in it is still pretty fresh and there is minimal die off so realy the load on the skimmer isn't that great. But I think more important would be the "no light" which I don't see anyone doing as they want to move the rock out as fast as they can.

I know store owners don't want to dedicate the Sq^ft to taking care of rock, but if they were going to dedicate it to any type of live stock that is the one to do it with.. as there is no losses so the amout of floor space is always good to make money.. now having said that I would definatly try to do a rack system to minimize the floor area.

one of the better stores for rock (well at least 8 years ago) had two 500 gal containers for rock.. never did a waterchange and was horably under skimmed, but the rock still came out nice. the problem is that LR is a filter in its self and will clear up a horable tank, but another problem arizes from this in that the more rock sucks up the more its pours become plugged up and the less it can filter.. so a store that just dumps rock in a tank and lets it sit till it is cured is decreasing the life span of the rock.. as far as for what I have seen for water changes the stores that do do them usaly do so after the rock had cleared the water so at that point they are doing nothing but waisting salt. what they need to do is conduct a water change as soon as they notice amonia in order to get the crap out of the water.


anyways we've beet this to death.. stores will do one or the other or a combanation of both.. some will light some won't, so decide what you want and find a store that does it that way

Steve

Waaay too many comments on my post to comment back on, but for those vendors that think they are taking good care of the rock (and I'm sure some of you do, but it really is few and far between), how many of you test the water for ammonia? How many of you do 100% water changes on the new batches of rock?

I agree with untamed that when I buy rock I want it FOB (fresh off the boat) to preserve life because I honestly don't trust a vendor to do this because "most" vendors view live rock with much less value than I do. However, with the prices of "new" live rock these days I have to buy "used" rock, and shop around until I find some good, clean, healthy rock.

I use the same method as Steve (Stir Crazy) when curing rock. I check for spikes, and do water changes as needed. A couple days in 4 ppm ammonia does a lot of damage to the life on/in the rock. Heck, 2 ppm is damaging. For me, I don't really care how you achieve the clean water (be it skimmer or water changes or both), just keep the dang ammonia and phosphate down!!

Btw Steve (sphelps), the comment about opening a store of my own I was joking hence the :lol:. I'm not an idiot, I've managed enough stores to know that retail isn't easy and you can't have it all. I'm not one to shop somewhere else over $1, but I sure will if it's a 15% (or more) difference! Retail fish stores don't make very many owners rich...

So out of curiousity what life exactly are you all trying to preserve?

For me, mostly a diverse selection of nitrifying bacteria and mollusks. I also don't want a bunch of unchecked die-off polluting the rock with phosphate, and gumming it up with detritus.

Out of curiosity, what's the most important aspect of live rock to you Steve (sphelps)?

I'm in it mostly for the structure in terms of shape and porosity. The rest is garbage in my mind. High quality base in worth more in my books than actual live rock. Bacteria is free and you don't need "live" rock to get it.

I'm not sure I see the appeal in mollusks but ok. As far as general bacteria goes ammonia levels wouldn't really affect that and the best way to remove "pollutants" is to eliminate everything that pollutes from the rock.

I just don't see what the big fuss is about with this whole live rock thing. I'll take dead and clean any day over live.

Who cares?

Just buy the rock from wherever you want and let the vendors do what they want. It's the same as buying anything, if you don't like a product, don't buy it. Simple.

Bravo !

I look at it this way if I'm going to buy Rock I'm going to go where there is the cheaper price, end of bitching, come on people support your local vendors if they arent doing it right thing teach them. Don't bitch about it fix it. wow too much complaining, until you have a head dollar of 100,000K to play with (zip it) its nothing worst then someone bitching to get posts or just to be heard. just to make a statement. sorry folks to many people here trying to make a name for them selfs. I understand that people can't make t he proper business or thatthey dont have enought money. But come on they are making a statment or trying to help out.. give them a chance.
mike OUt

green well said

I had a pet rock once. I took really good care of it.. but one day I forgot to feed it and it died and was no longer live rock :cry:

+1 :biggrin: BRAVO!


How annoying what people bitch about on here and I wonder why I go on and off Canreef. I get especially annoyed when someone thinks they know best about everything. *rolling my eyes* Poor vendors. You can't paint every store with the same brush. Perhaps you should take a drive to some stores in Edmonton and Calgary. Otherwise thats just not right to say that. As said already...If you don't like the product, dont buy it. Simple. :mrgreen:

man some one woke up on the wrong side of a snowbank thismorning :mrgreen:

live rock
 

I gotta agree with GSP.
Keith.

What I find really amusing is how someone will complain about a vendors live rock but then later state they buy used rock and wouldn't buy new rock anyway because it's too expensive. :lol::lol: Now that's funny.

Have to agree with the recent turn this thread took, what vendors do will always vary and in the end who cares! If you have to cure some stuff a little longer, so what, and I really have a hard time understanding preserving everything on the rock, most of this would be problematic anyway. Wipe it out and start over but to each his/her own which is why no vendor will ever be able to satisfy the believes of every customer. So quit complaining!

I can't believe Myka that your local vendors are not doing exactly what you want to get the business that you cannot find second hand somewhere for a better price. I think they are missing a major revenue stream from this "can't find elsewhere cheaper" business!!!!

Why are you guys all getting so caught up and peed off by this thread?? I don't understand why it's a big deal...?? Maybe I should have worded it differently. Sorry I thought you guys could be my bitching coffee buddies. I guess I will have to keep it to my bitching coffee buddies. Seriously though, you guys are way too serious.

everyone take a deep breath and take a step back.

It's rock.

Unless you're lucky (or unlucky depending on hitchhikers) enough to get some TBS rock into the country the live rock is all pretty dead. You want the bacteria basically. All the rock you buy live is going to have that. The rest has already had plenty die even if it's house a bit better than the next LFS.

mine ran away:sad:

but also Hilarious!

two words
DRY ROCK