Good live rock

[justinl]

yeah i belive untamed actually went down into the states to pick up the rock himself.

dave, thx for finding the aragocrete link for me

[woodcarver]

No prob

.................Dave

[BCOrchidGuy]

I buy live rock from the LFS, sometimes cured sometimes uncured. I prefer to get it right out of the box, that way I'm getting as much of the "stuff" as I can. Good live rock should be porous, you can get very dense rock or very open lightweight rock. I've got sponge, some sort of what looks like a pink encrusting tunicate, pods of all shapes and sizes, unique species of coraline algae, different types of tube worms, polyps etc on my rock. I've also got two odd looking creatures that so far seem to be harmless, they seem to just clean rock so I'm not to worried about them but I have no idea what they are. They only come out and night, they look like snails with out a shell but they have a blackish bulge where a shell would be. Maybe a flat worm of some sort I don't know, maybe about 3/8 of an inch long... who knows. Even when it's shipped in wet newspaper a lot of stuff is still alive, the homemade rock is great as you can make different shapes and sizes to fit your needs however, it doesn't add diversity of livestock where rock does. If you can get rock from Jakarta, some from Tonga and some from somewhere else, get a mix, you get a larger diversity of life, base rock is nice and cheap, you can use concrete drill bits to cut holes in it and zap strap it together to make shapes if you like and it's cheap and you don't have to wait for it to cure.

Doug

[fishytime]

Check out Red Coral in Calgary. He has some really nice Haitian and another one I cant remember the name of. Its a little pricey though.

[jslaney]

Its too bad that they dont ship up here. What a bureaucracy that I cant buy aquacultered live rock from the states but I can by who knows what taken from indo at the LFS

Hey Untamed, just wondering how you got yours from seattle. I am assuming you got them to send it to their airport but how did you get it across the border. I am a little nervous about having 300 dollars worth of live rock confiscated and dont really want to go to jail.

[bsyoun]

I just got some of Red Coral's Miyaki live rock a couple of weeks ago. They are a bit on the expensive side, but they're quite porous. If you want 'lively' live rock, his isn't too bad. I've found two zoos and a tiny featherduster worm on the 12 lbs I bought from him.

Here's a link to his rocks...

http://www.redcoralaquarium.com/Live...aki/Miyaki.htm

Ben

[Zylumn]

I bought a little of that live miyaki rock from red coral and was blown away with how live it is. It is pricey but would work as a great seed for base rock or diy rock.
my .02
kevin

[howdy20012002]

Even by driving down, nothing is guaranteed.
"Legally" you still would require the CITES when you arrive at the border.
However, most customs people aren't aware of what is required when it comes to this type of stuff.
If you just showed up and said oh yea, I picked up some rock for my tank, they probably wouldn't say anything....Probably is the key word.
For something like this, ignorance is sometimes bliss. I know that I came across the border last year with a couple of hundred lbs of LR without any problems. At that time, I didnt' know that CITES was required. Neither did the customs, because I did declare the LR at the border. All they were concerned with was the GST on the total amount.

[untamed]

Originally Posted by jslaney

Its too bad that they dont ship up here. What a bureaucracy that I cant buy aquacultered live rock from the states but I can by who knows what taken from indo at the LFS

Hey Untamed, just wondering how you got yours from seattle. I am assuming you got them to send it to their airport but how did you get it across the border. I am a little nervous about having 300 dollars worth of live rock confiscated and dont really want to go to jail.

I put the back seats down, and filled the car. Whatever you do, don't try to hide stuff...just tell them what you have and how much it is worth...go in and give them their money.

I can only provide my personal experience which is that I have had no issues with bringing aquacultured LR across the border. I've always travelled with a lot of information about what the product actually is, in case they want to open a box and look. So far, they have not had any interest in inspecting it or questioned me in any detail about it.

They do struggle with how to classify it. On my next trip, I'll bring the paperwork from the previous crossing to help them out. Last time they classified it as "limestone" for import purposes.

I avoid using the term "live" to describe the rock. That's a term that we use as hobbiests. To non-aquarists, that means very different things and they start searching for import criteria for live animals. If you end up at "live coral", then you are getting close to losing your shipment. To them, it is just "rock for an aquarium". If the conversation turns to "living coral", my response would be that the rock contains no living coral that I am aware of.

My POV is that it would not make any sense for Canada to NOT allow Florida aquacultured rock, when they allow natural LR to come in from other parts of the world and be sold at retail. Aquacultured rock is a product of the US...licenced for sale by the US and Florida governments for the express reason that it is deemed to be sustainably harvested.

My belief is that one rarely gets in trouble for trying to do the right thing.

[howdy20012002]

I would like to say again, however unlikely, that there is a possibilty of them confiscating the rock as it is required by law to have a CITES permit to bring it into Canada whether is is aquacultured or not.
Ultimately, regardless of what makes sense and seems like the "right thing", Customs can do what they want when you don't have the proper paperwork.
Chances are, you won't have any problems.
However, I just don't want to say that and then have it all confiscated by customs.
For something like this, if you don't have the proper documentation and they find out. you are pretty much hooped and won't be able to do anything to get the rock back. so you have to keep that possibility, however slight, in the back of your head.
Neal
(keeping in mind as well, that I myself have loaded my vehicle with LR and unknowingly broke the law when I easily came across the border. Like I said, ignorance is bliss.)