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
. 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...