Vendors! Take care of the live rock!!!

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by sphelps

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.

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.

Originally Posted by sphelps

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.

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

Originally Posted by sphelps

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.

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