Thoughts on aquacultured Carribean LR

[Anonymous]

What are your thoughts on aquacultured Carribean live rock?

Any good?
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Tippmann 98 custom

 

[Entacmaea]

I've never used it, but I would also be interested in where you get it- is that Walt Smith LR?

 

[Anonymous]

I got some before, I thought it was nice.

But it is a heavier rock, much heavier than the figi I just got.

It was very full of life, good and bad. It had lots of neat little cup corals and mollusks and some encrusting sps I never identified, but also had aptasia, quite a bit of aptasia actually, and one mantis shrimp. It was fun live rock to have because you really could just stare at it for a long time and see lots of neat little things. I have often thought of setting up a small tank with just aquacultured Carribean live rock as the focus of the tank, see what thrives.

I got mine from gulf view.

 

[leftovers]

Live rock from the caribbean tends to have nuisance algea and mantis shrimp...YMMV and some of it is quite nice but IME its been a rare thing to see nice cultured rock from the atlantic.

 

[fe_toad]

IMO, florida aquacultured rock is among the nicest live rock out there. I am a newbie when in comes to Reef tanks, but I have had FOWLR tanks for years and you can't beat the amount of life that comes on it. Good and bad, as LauraD mentioned. However, removing the bad isn't that hard. I have Fiji and Tonga live rock, both are nice(different look), but not near the amount of life. I guess it just depends on the look you're going for. I would recommend liverocks.com if you did decide to purchase aquacultured rock. I have had a very good experience with them and they did have the best aquacultured rock I have got yet.

 

[ChrisRD]

I prefer Pacific rock. IME it's less dense, has better shapes, adequate beneficial life and tends to have less problem hitchhikers. I believe there's aquacultured Pacific rock available now (Walt Smith) although I've never tried it.