Is this good rock?

[tkhawaja]

Originally Posted by teevee

(and I can't believe you're putting 250lbs of rock in a 100 gallon tank)

Is that good or a bad, "I can't believe"? This is part of the reason I went with a custom tank. Having it 6' long gives a lot more room to play with for scaping. So far I put in one box (~75 lbs) of Tonga branch, which pretty much took up the left thid of the tank. Because of the delays I reduced the Kanai order to 1 box. Instead I put in the recent 50 lbs of Fiji. You can see that once I aquascape it properly it will take up less than a third of the tank. I'm waiting for the Kanai before I do any more aquascaping. So 1 box of Kanai will bring it up to 195 lbs. Any uninteresting pieces from all that + another 50 lbs or so will be turned into rubble to replace the bioballs and populate the refugium.

[tkhawaja]

Well Allen tells me that the rock stays in the ocean until they get confirmation. If the shipment gets bumped it goes back to the ocean.

[Quinn]

Well I know that if I put 2.5 times the water in my tank of rock, I'd have no room for corals. I have 150 lbs in a 150 gal right now and I don't need any more. Mind you I have a lot of caves and empty space, whereas if you're going with the tighter fitting look, I suppose you could get more in. Anyways if it works for you, it works for everyone else.

[StirCrazy]

Teevee I have 270lbs of rock in a 94 gal tank.. depending on the rock and how many sumps you have it can be ok.

getting back tothe rock issue here I think personaly I would rather have rock with absolutly nothing but coraline algae on it after what I have been through latily. you can always add bugs.

Steve

[tkhawaja]

I ended up talking with a wholesaler from Vancouver yesterday. He actually found this thread and called me up about it. At first I couldn't figure out how he got my phone number but my profile has my business website in it. In any case we had an interesting conversation about who buys what from where, and the different ways the LR actually ends up in Canada. He explained that you can get LR in at any time as long as you are willing to pay for it, but that would price the LR out of the market. So, to keep the product affordable sometimes shipments get bumped. Oh, and he sells ONLY to retailers NEVER to individuals directly. He told me of a few places that buy his rock but I'm not sure if I can disclose it, I'll ask him today. Now when I think of "Ultra Premium" rock this is what I have in mind. Here's a thumbnail:



Light, porous, nice shape, and covered with all sorts of interesting things. I might be a newbie, but anyone can put two different rocks besides each other and do a comparison. And yes I know it's all just a matter of opinion depending on what you want your LR for.

[Aquattro]

The rock you show is called Jakarta rock, and the wholesaler sells to a lot of different places all over the place. I'm sure you can disclose names of retailers. All the rock in Victoria comes from him, and it is some of the nicest rock I've seen. In Victoria is costs between 12 and 17 dollars a pound, but I'm told mailand retailers sell it for about a third of that. Should be the same in Alberta.
I occasionally buy a chunk just because I like it so much, even though I have absolutely no room for more rock.

[tkhawaja]

Ok, so I got the wholesalers reply. It's Aquarium Illusions in Edmonton but we all know how expensive they are. Ofcourse, even he said they have a nice display set up. And it was Gold Aquarium and Wei (sp?) in Calgary, same there Wei is expensive. The rock is collected about 200 miles from Jakarta and he supplies fresh or semi-cured. He did state that he delivers the fresh rock to the stores but how they cure it makes a big difference in what it looks like afterwards. I also asked about collection methods but I think there was a misunderstanding and he just told me semi-cured vs. fresh. I'll be calling Gold and AI both to see what their pricing is if the J & L Kanai shipment gets bumped again.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by tkhawaja

He explained that you can get LR in at any time as long as you are willing to pay for it, but that would price the LR out of the market. So, to keep the product affordable sometimes shipments get bumped.

Isn't that what I told you??

The reality is you can get cargo onto just about any plane you want .... but at a cost. If you want to keep your product at a price people are willing to pay then I guess you're at the mercy of the airlines

[tkhawaja]

What? You're expecting me to take your one opinion and believe it 100%? I wouldn't be a very good reefer if I got my information from only one source, now would I?

[LostMind]

J&L called me a few hours ago and said rock should be in around 3 or so tomorrow...

They have called me before every prior shipment date and let me know it was bumped back...