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?

[fkshiu]

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.

[untamed]

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.

[Myka]

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.

[bv_reefer]

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..

[Toxik]

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.

[andresont]

Originally Posted by Rene

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?

As others indicated, I would recommend
1. new rock , the freshest out of the box is the best because you need clean, pest and chemical free rock. what ever life that is still there will die off anyway while your tank will be cycling
2. Porosity is important for bio filtration
3. Shapes, if you get lucky your box will have cool shapes but PVC structure was always good way to go
4. You only need 30% of live rock or less of the tank volume, if you get more you will need enormous water flow to penetrate this brick wall of live rock in order to get a decent flow. If you get less you will have reduced bacterial bio mass. Dense rock will support less bacteria and you will need more of it which leads you back to reduced flow problem.

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by andresont

As others indicated, I would recommend

3. Shapes, if you get lucky your box will have cool shapes but PVC structure was always good way to go

Are there some good examples of using PVC as a frame for setting up structures?