Video of World’s Best Live Rock – And It’s Aquacultured Too!
Over the years of installing and maintaining large custom reef tanks, I have seen my fare share of live rock. And I always had a bad feeling whenever I brought in live rock that was collected from the wild, which was the norm. Now there is a new aquacultured live rock that is amazing and it’s from one my absolute favorite fish/coral wholesalers. And today I have a video to show you.
The product is called REAL REEF ROCK, and it is created by Fish Heads, Inc.. This is the wholesaler we get most of our corals, saltwater fish and invertebrates from. These guys are awesome. Not only has their animals been great quality (they never shipped us undersized or poor quality), but they have been wonderful to do business with as well – very reliable. All around I’ve always felt lucky to do business with Fish Heads, Inc..
Here’s a video from Fish Heads, Inc. showing their new REAL REEF ROCK, along with an an explanation of what it is and how it is created. Oh – and did I mention that this rock is cured? Yes, that’s right – for the same price as wild-collected live rock (which needs to be cured), you can get aquacultured live rock that is already cured, and has no nasty hitch hikers to wory about (mantis shrimps, fire worms, rock crabs, etc..). Here’s the video along with a link where you can buy REAL REEF ROCK:
If you’re in the market for some great live rock that is completely aquacultured and has no negative impact on wild coral reefs, then this is the stuff you want. And they have it in nice big sizes too (as you can see in the video).
Here’s where you can buy REAL REEF ROCK now.
Happy Fishes (and live rock),
Warren Gibbons
Tagged with: aquacultured live rock • fish heads • fish-only tank • live rock • Real Reef Rock • reef tank • salt water aquarium
Filed under: Aquaculture • Live Rock
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About a month ago, my husband and I finished setting up our first 32 gallon saltwater aquarium. We put 30 lbs of live sand, 20 lbs of live rock, 3 live algae, one 6″ polyp, 5 fish, and a few crabs, shrimp and snails. Everything was looking great when last Sunday our air-conditioner went out. We live in Texas and temps around here have been in the 100′s so the aquarium obviously reached much higher temps. Since this happened over the 4th of July weekend, we were unable to have the A/C fixed until Tuesday evening (so a total of 3 days without A/C). Needless to say, ALL the fish died. Our question for you is, do we need to start completely over, as in replacing the live rock/sand and all new water? Your advice would be greatly appreciated by two VERY novice and sad saltwater enthusiasts.
Hi, Ellarose. Sorry to hear about the heat wave and the animals that were lost.
You do not need to start over. Your live rock and sand are OK and will bounce back. The main issue to resolve is the temperature, which I know was an unwanted equipment failure.
So here are the steps I recommend you take.
1) Temperature control: Ideally your tank is most protected against high temperatures if you have both AC and an aquarium chiller. Now, I know an aquarium chiller can be quite expensive, especially if you’re novices and are just getting going with your aquarium. The other thing you can to to help control the temperature is to get a fan and have it blow across the surface of the water. This will increase evaporation, which will help to cool your tank (much cheaper option than a chiller).
2) Water quality: Do a 100% water change. This will fix the bad water quality that has happened because of the animal deaths. Since there were fish deaths, and likely also shrimp, snails and possibly the coral too (I don’t know – you didn’t mention them), this means that as those animals died and decayed in the tank, they released nutrients (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates) that have degraded the water quality. In other words, ammonia levels are up (toxic/bad), nitrite levels are up (toxic/bad), nitrates will go up some (not toxic, but also not wanted), alkalinity and pH has dropped (all the acid released by decaying animals uses up buffers that stabilize pH). Do as big a water change as you can (all at once – don’t break it up into multiple smaller water changes). This is the easiest and simplest way to bring your water quality back to normal/ideal. And right before you do the water change – take a turkey baster and puff it at the live rock to remove any collected detritus in the rock.
3) Restock the tank: Once the water change has been completed, and the water temperature is back to normal, you can go ahead and begin restocking the tank. Your original stocking the tank with different species of macroalgae is a good idea, in that it will help to remove unwanted ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and phosphates from the water. I assume you have some kind of lighting that will grow corals and/or algae. As the algae grows, you can prune it and throw out the cuttings (thus exporting unwanted nitrogen and phosphorous).
I hope this helps you out. Reply and let me know if you have further questions or if anything I wrote doesn’t make sense.
Happy Fishes,
Warren Gibbons
Real Reef is a joke. This rock is FAKE and the color is not real. Whats worse is this rock is bieng sold at fish stores as live rock which its not. Pods lol where? I sure didnt see any life whatsoever on his rock! I can understand maybe using this rock as baserock but for 8.99 a pound? RIPOFF- best live rock in the world lol how much did fhi pay you to say that! Dont be fooled by this crap ppl
Thanks, John. I don’t agree that it is a ripoff. And of course, no one has paid me to say anything. I simply see this rock as the best alternative to wild collected rock. And it’s OK with me that you see it differently. There is room in our hobby for differing opinions.
I’ve seen a lot of different aquacultured live rock and there are trade-offs with each. For example, in the past, most aquacultured live rock was so small that it was very difficult to build an open structure with it. Real Reef rock comes in large sizes, huge actually. And we simply can’t keep harvesting wild reef rock while thinking it isn’t negatively impacting the reefs. After all, it takes many years for live rock to form in the wild.
I don’t mind the color they add to the rock, as it is worth the reduced impact to our coral reefs. Their rock is cured in tanks and is loaded with bacteria, which is primarily what we need to get our systems cycled and stable. I just recently started a system with dry rock, and it looks terrible compared to Reel Reef Rock, and it took much longer to cycle.
I see your point about comparing it to wild collected live rock, and not wanting to call Real Reef rock live – especially when you are comparing it to wild collected rock. But lets not kid ourselves here. The amount of life that remains on most of the rock entering the hobby is pretty small in the first place – especially when compared to wild collected rock 10 years ago. Most of it is either scrubbed off, or dies off before it gets to the hobbyist.
As for the retail pricing you mentioned, that’s up to each retailer what they will charge.