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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.