I am just getting back into this hobby after a six year break. I did it for 9 years before that. Being that I was in San Diego, I had access to the freshest and finest shipments. I used to have Hawaiian rock and Guam rock before it was closed down! $11 a lb!!!!! So I have been very spoiled and nothing I have seen in recent years has even come close to my standards! Years ago Jakarta was producing some very nice rock and I have actually seen some nice stuff coming lately.
With great trepedation I recently ordered rock from Larry and Rose over at anchofish. I told them the whole story and begged them to pick out only the choicest pieces for me. Per their recommendation, I chose the rock from the newly opened island of Kaelini (Tonga).
The rock I received was very interesting. While the color is not what I would have liked it to be, the shapes are really neat. With time, corralline will develop on the rock. I have some very cool table coral rock with long bases, large flat slabs (pieces of very large table), and some pretty gnarly pieces. They will also ship very large pieces which you will never see in a fish store.
So now I am curing the rock while my tank is being made for me. I plan for about three weeks of curing. Here is what you need to do. two ~30 gallon Rubbermade containers will cure about 100lbs of rock (Dont use anything larger than these or else it will just be too flimsy to hold the water). I have good water circulation, airstones, and a good skimmer in use. For the first week, the water fouled up pretty good. My skimmer was going nuts! Since then I have changed out the water completely and everything is starting to clear up now.
I dont see why you couldn't cure the rock in your tank as long as you dont have fish in there. The spike in pollutants might not be bad to jumpstart the bacteria growth in your live sand bed. Just make sure when the levels go down, you still keep feeding the tank.
So check out
www.anchofish.com and see if you can't find something you like.
It does come from Tonga, however.
