ceastman Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 Has anyone ordered live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater: http://www.tbsaltwater.com/ first place I have seen that ships their rock in bags of sea water. Seems like that would keep die off to a minimum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 you may want to check with subsea first to see if he still has rock for sale that is similar to their quality. it's local, so it would certainly minimize die off. also, he would probably know the best place to order if he doesn't have any. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wizardx322 Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 I would not order live rock like that. The water just adds wieght and would prob cost more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jpowell490 Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 I have read many good reviews of tb, but I always see that they have many hitchhikers. Some good, others not so good. Kind of a toss up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 The rock I have is from TBS. Love it. Lots of life on it. Sponges, tunicates, crabs, feather dusters, pistol shrimp, sea squirts, clams, oysters, etc. Personally, I haven't seen other rock that I'd want more. Richard ships and you get it in hours. It is 3X/4X bagged and in good shape. He communicates and will want you to tell him you received the shipment. Air freight is spendy but it is the best IMO. I have had a few gorilla crabs and I've had mantis, but I don't consider them to be a negative. If you want to remove them, a pint glass trap works in a day or two. If you want diversity then I'd recommend. If you want a totally controlled environment, then not. I've ordered from Richard four times and would definitely do so again. The only negative I see in the rock from TBS is one of geometry. It is blocky, not branching. If there were some branching pieces it would be perfect but, such is life. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 I would not order live rock like that. The water just adds wieght and would prob cost more. There is one more disadvantage to shipping with water. If something dies in the water, it will quickly pollute the complete rock shipment. Patrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 For those of us that have seen diver collected uncured live rock, there is no comparison. After 45 years of reefkeeping, I was in awe when I witnessed the biodiversity of GOM uncured live rock for the first time two years ago. For me the variety of macro algae was a gold mine. While I can vouch for Richard Harker at TBS, I have used a different lease further out in deeper water with a different diver owner. Aside from the water shipping comment, was there a specific question? Patrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted January 14, 2014 Author Share Posted January 14, 2014 Patrick, Nothing specific. I was just curious if anyone had any experiences with Tampa Bay Saltwater. The other diver owner with a lease deeper out, do they have a website? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Patrick, Nothing specific. I was just curious if anyone had any experiences with Tampa Bay Saltwater. The other diver owner with a lease deeper out, do they have a website? Dale Barger at Gulf View. I think it is live-rock.com. Both Dale and Richard have maintained these offshore leases for more than 20 years. Between the two of them, they have mined and transported 10 million pounds of Bimini Limestone off the Florida coast to be seeded as live rock. Richard is located in 15' of water 15 miles west of Tarpon Springs. Dales reef is located in 30' of water 30 miles west of Tarpon Springs. When these two men can no longer physically dive, this sustainable resource will be lost. The State of Florida will no longer issue the permits for this type of aquaculture. The permits for these two men are renewable, at this time. Patrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Dales newest site is floridaliverock.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted January 14, 2014 Author Share Posted January 14, 2014 Patrick, Thanks for the information. I spoke to Dale today, great guy. I am going to get some deco rock from him late next week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Live rock should arrive in Austin tomorrow at 1pm, can't wait to see what is growing on it. I'll take some close up pictures before it goes into the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Wow this live rock is amazing http://www.floridaliverock.com/ . I will take some pictures once the water clears up some more. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 For anyone interested, I spoke to Dale at floridaliverock.com and he is very helpful. I'm thinking about doing this in a 15 gallon tank and he made suggestions on what to get, what not to get, and will send less than 30 lbs. of rock. he also mentioned what i assume was mr. eastman's order and that austin seems to be one of his biggest markets. patrick, you may want to call him and see about getting a commission. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramsey Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Wow this live rock is amazing http://www.floridaliverock.com/ . I will take some pictures once the water clears up some more. I'd love to see some pictures. I'm considering ordering from these guys or TBS. I've wanted to try fresh Florida live rock for a while! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Sorry to bring this back from the dead, but I was curious how the rock has held up and any downsides you had with hitch hikers. What process did you use to make sure nothing was going to be wreck havoc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Live rock straight from the ocean scares me to no end. Last I remember, the original poster had mantis shrimp for sure and a lot of unknown algae on the rocks. I don't really see a reason for this practice anymore unless the person just loves the natural look of sponges, clams, barnacles, and macro algae. Most will die off anyways as we don't have the populations of planktonic and benthic food sources to sustain them. Then you're left with a few sponges, whatever rogue mantis shrimp are left, and rocks covered in macro. Not the look I want but I won't knock anybody who enjoys all the natural life that can be found on these rocks. When they first come in, they look amazing. I'm just a control freak and don't like the idea of unknown animals/pests/algae being introduced to my tank. Plus, it's crazy expensive and I'm cheap too! [emoji41] Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 See I'm in the other boat. I love my Florida rock! There are definitely drawbacks (mantis, pest algae, and in our really unlucky case, isopods). But I feel it's worth the diversity you get. That being said, if you aren't willing to have some frustrating moments, don't get it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Here is where i'm at, I love the diversity and I've always subscribed to the replicate the best you can to the natural environment. However, introducting an unknown amount of unknown species scares me. It's easy to deal with stuff relatively speaking when you're aware of what has been introduced. I was thinking about buying 20 pounds throwing it in my nano and watching the living crap out of it to see what emerges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 We ended up having 3 mantis, 2 of which we "caught" by simply pulling the rocks they were hiding in out and put them in the sump. Those 2 are still in our sump and frankly, their kinda cool. We decided to keep them until they get really big and start messing stuff up. We "hand feed" them with the turkey baster, and they are very smart. The last mantis took us a few months to catch. We didn't even see him for about 2 months, and then it took multiple tries with a trap to finally catch him. We did get a few aiptasias but those are easy... Joe's Juice, laser, and manual removal took care of all of them. No problem. The isopods were a bit of a nightmare. They are hard to catch, and have the possibility to reproduce fast. However, we think we eradicated them now by a few ways - Manual removal when they were on a fish, we actually sucked a few into a turkey baster and removed them, and lastly, I lasered a few and kill them. *Knock on wood* we have not seen any more in a while, but I wouldn't go so far as to proclaim the tank completely isopod free yet. We had 2 very large mithrax crabs on the rocks that became aggressive and we removed to the sump to go play with the mantis. We think 1 of them may have killed our mystery wrasse, but cannot confirm. That's the negatives we've had. On the positive side: We have lots of sponge, various filter feeders, macro algae, even some coral that survived including a wellso that looks great! We have lots of beneficial crabs including a decorator crab, some mithrax, and even some emeralds. Tons of tube worms, feather dusters, some urchins and other cool inverts. Plus, IMO, it looks really nice. The colors are very vibrant, lots of different coralline. If I had to do it again, I would definitely do MORE Florida rock. The Fiji we got was cool looking, but not much life survived that long of shipping, so I don't know I'd buy any of that again. But as I said, be ready for some frustrations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 The rock you would get again would be from TB saltwater. Do you think you could deal with the problems you had by letting it go without any fish in it for a while to remove the unwanted critters and catch them. I.E. the isopods? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Well, our tank had no fish twice, both times for about a month +. You theoretically could starve out the isopods but I think they survive quite a long time without food. The other problem is that we didn't know we even had isopods until we added the fish. I would definitely suggest no fish for a while if you do Florida stuff. You can do some tricks to see if you have any bad critters like setting some traps with food for mantis, doing the stinky fish trap for isopods, etc... I would say if we started over, I would probably do that just to hedge my bet. Of note, having a smaller tank with less rock means it won't be as hard to locate the little suckers. A substantial problem for us was that they had 300+ lbs of rock to go hide in. Our Florida rock was from Gulf-View. Talk to Dale Barger - [email protected] We had him go out in the boat, pick some prime pieces, and take them straight to the airport. It was from the Ocean to our tank in about 8-10 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Thanks for the info Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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