sgould

I am sure they are out there, but I have no personal knowledge of specific sources, no.

Depending on your defintion of live rock...If all you want is rock that fulfills a biological filtration role, then just dump some plain old rock into a tank and cycle it. Bacteria will colonize the rock and there you go. If you want oceanic life on your rock, it could still be cultured by placing the rock into an established tank and waiting for a period of several months for it to acquire the additional organisms in question (corraline, etc). However, unless you do this yourself, you are back to my original point...you can never be 100% sure of everything that decided to take up residence on that rock before you took possession of it.

For the sake of arguement though, let's say that you find someplace to buy cultured rock that gives you a guarantee of everything that is (and isn't) on the rock. Do you ever plan to add corals to your tank? Many of them come on small pieces of live rock. Lots of hitchhiker potential. From one piece about 3" by 4" that my starburst polyps came on, I picked up halimeda algae, a couple of feather dusters, and 2 other things I still haven't figured out what they are.

That is why I say, in my opinion, you can control what is going into your tank to an extent. But not 100%.

bhcaaron

I didn't mean 100%. I figured that algae would probably be impossible to control, if you're getting actual oceanic live rock. I just hoped to find some control over fishes, shrimp, crabs, sponges, worms, stars, etc. Do all aqua cultured rocks still come from the ocean? Some control would be nice, more would be better.

bhcaaron

Also, I intend to use the Berlin + Jaubert Methods. Since there is no artificial filtration, other than skimming, there is no cycling period in which bacteria need to culture media. However, I do intend to let the tank mature for three months before I introduce fishes or corals. I will probably introduce cleaning crew and algae before that. Do you think this will give me enough time to find and get rid of hitch hikers?

sgould

A lot of "cultured" rock does still come from the ocean. For example, DFS has a cultured rock that they deliberately place in the ocean to culture, but they do it outside of the reef area. There may well be places offering a tank cultured rock, but I am not aware of who/where.

NirvanaandTool

So far i really havent noticed any hitchhikers but its only been a few days ...
The rock has a decent amount of algae on it and little black hair like pieces that extend out from the rocks. Guessing thats just another type of algae?
Found some small baby clams on the rock as well but havent seen much else. Still need to siphon some of the debris that fell off during the setup out of the tank - but need a longer siphon to reach my bucket - hex tank is too tall haha.

bhcaaron

I keep finding such dissapointing information . Couldn't I just find fairy dust or blink my eyes to make it all just right... right now!?

NirvanaandTool

Umm. just forget we said anything aaron.
Everything is simple and easy with a saltwater tank!!!

bhcaaron

lol dork!

NirvanaandTool

haha - ya i know..

just get a magnifying glass and go over your LR like crazy. pick off everything that you dont want.

bhcaaron

Believe it or not, that's what I was thinking of doinb

bhcaaron

Hey! Look at this! I found it on LiveAquaria.com Yeah, I know its not going to have the effect I want, but, still any help is great! Does anyone know any other tips like this to get rid of unwanted pests?


"Helpful Tips for Controlling Unwanted Pests:
Submerse the new rock into a bucket filled with saltwater with a specific gravity of 1.035 to 1.040 for one minute. Any invertebrates including mantis shrimp, bristle worms, and crabs will quickly evacuate from the rock and into the bucket of water. Remove the live rock from the bucket and sort through the invertebrates in the bucket. Determine those you want to add to your system and discard unwanted pests. Bristle worms still attached to the rock can be removed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers or tweezers. This technique can be used to remove unwanted pests before or after curing your newly arrived live rock. "

NirvanaandTool

There ya go.
I haven't found anything on my live rock. Nothing besides algae. Guess thats cause i got it from a LFS where it was sitting in large buckets and was already cured?

I just did my first water change on the tank - probably did about 10%. Checked the levels after the change and I think im already cycled since i had the live sand in before i put live rock in. Ammonia was 0.5ppm, Nitrites were 0ppm and Nitrates were about 20ppm. I put in some Amquel Plus to get rid of the excess ammonia and nitrates and might try to put in one fish this weekend. Wish me luck....

bhcaaron

Ummm... are you sure? I thought ammonia had to reach 0ppm at the cycle's completion.

agsansoo

Make sure after your tank has finished cycling, to do a large water change. This will help with the higher levels of nitrates.

bhcaaron

Since I only intend on using water movement and water changes as filtration, how long do you think will be good to wait before introducing fish....... and now I'm feeling stupid since I already bought the API master test. Sorry people, its morning for me and I'm not yet thinking lol. Anyways.... I had already bought a bag of live sand for my original project. No sense in letting it go to waste. Do you think it will still house other kinds of beneficial bacteria that will survive brackish water? It should, right? I hope to keep the water as low as I can on salinity since this promotes breeding for bumbles. Is 1.0 sg good?

NirvanaandTool

I think the Amquel got rid of that other .5ppm plus i'll monitor the ANN levels daily and add more Amquel if needed. Thats right, I made up an acronym for Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates. But i think the sand/rock are working as planned now since the LFS cured the rock.

Angansoo, how do you go about such a large water change though? Dont you have to let the water sit for a day before you can add to the tank? I only have 2 bucketss that probably totalling 7-8 gallons, plus another needed for the siphoned water.

I think i'll try to get one small Ocellaris clown this weekend for the tank. See how that does and add other livestock slooowly.

bhcaaron

OMG! So when I went to the LFS yesterday I went ot peek at my dream tank (they have a 180G bowfront all set up which they've been slowly stocking) and they had the cutest little clownfish in it this time. They were the size of my thumb nail! They both were sharing two anemonies. It looked so funny! It looked like Nemo when his dad asked him to brush ahahahahahaha

NirvanaandTool

Haha exactly why i want a ocellaris. That **** movie haha.
Dont forget to brush Nemo, you dont want this anemone to sting you!
I wish i had the resources to get an anemone for my future clown but that will have to wait til after i start up my 55gal tank and get enough funds for metal halides.