Live rock
 

I'm looking to buy some live rock. What kinds of things should I be looking for in my rock? How can I tell if its good rock?

One word - porosity. Avoid big heavy bricks which have little surface area, are harder to stack and are plain boring. Porous rock holds more bacteria/hitchhikers, creates better structures and allows more flow for less money.

You're going to get pretty different answers. For me...I'm much less interested in shape and porosity as I am interested in biodiversity (life on/in the rock) and environmentally responsible harvest.

So...you need to figure out what you want your aquarium to be and find the rock that meets your specific needs. There's no single "best" way to do things.

I look for porosity as well. Pick the rocks up...they should be kinda light for their size. Less porous rocks will be really heavy. I look for good shapes as well. Stay away from the brick shape!! Go for long and skinny or plate-like, which are my preferences. Personally I don't like a lot of bio-diversity on the rocks as I find most of that diversity tends to be algaes! I really like to put my fresh live rock into bins and "cook" it in the dark with a powerhead and a heater, doing weekly 100% waterchanges until the phosphates read 0 (this may take 12 weeks or more). I will never again set up a tank without cooking the LR.

I second for porosity, especially if you got nice light rock like fiji thats full of holes, it's so practical for attaching corals and easy to stack and secure, watch out for the aiptasia infested rocks, and obviously as much coraline as possible..

When setting up a new system, would you guys buy a box quantity and hope for what your looking for, or would you pick them individually? I can see the later being a more expensive way to go.

J&L gives you the box price just based on weight. You can hand pick what you want for the box price. I ALWAYS hand pick. :)

Watch out for aiptasia. I purchased all of my rock from existing tanks from members and being my first reef tank, I was not totally aware of the nuisance aiptasia can be in a small tank and almost impossible to be rid of.

Im looking at getting some used rock. lt looks dirty. Would this be ok if I cooked it?

If you cooked it for a few months then you will have no problem with your LR.