Aquacultured Rock From KP Aquatics

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I recently ordered some aquacultured (read: from the ocean) live rock from KP Aquatics. I started my tank with dry rock and have had trouble with nuisance algae and nutrients the entire two years the tank has been running. SPS might survive, but they certainly don't thrive or grow an appreciable amount. I'm tired of the struggle. I figured it was time for the nuclear option: buy ocean rock, cure it, and replace all the rock in my DT with the ocean rock.

I ordered a 10lb box of live rock from KP Aquatics. I chose KP Aquatics for several reasons. First, they overnight the rock. I didn't feel like air freighting. In a smaller tank, air freighting doesn't make a ton of sense. Second, KP Aquatics offer relatively small quantities of rock. They offer 10lb boxes overnighted, which turns out to be a perfect amount. I think it's just enough rock for my 20 gallon long, although I like a bit of a more empty look in my tanks.

The rock was shipped late in the day on a Monday and I received it by 11:00AM the next day. I took the rock out of the box and into my curing system it went. There's a ton of life on the rocks. Lots of coralline, what looks like a small scallop, and a few feather dusters. I saw a tiny starfish the first day I put the rock in the tank, and there was a small mantis shrimp left in the bag after I had taken out all the rock, but other than that, I haven't seen much large fauna. I'm sure there are some live critters there... they might just be hiding in the rock. There was a rather large dead brittle star inside one of the holes on the rock. While only time will tell if this is true, I think overnighting ocean rock might be the best option in terms of pest management. Larger more complex animals (like the big britle star or the mantis shrimp in the bag) appear to not like being out of water for 16+ hours. While this might reduce biodiversity, it could potentially weed out large and undesirable pests like mantis shrimps and crabs.

Had I known about KP Aquatics when I started my tank in January of 2016, I probably would have started my tank with their live rock instead of the dry rock. For only $108, a box of beautiful and very live rock came straight to my door. We're still learning as a hobby, but it appears that many problems we have in modern reef aquarium keeping, such as dinoflagellates or poor SPS growth, are caused at least in part (if not in whole) by an incomplete biological system. Since we made the switch to dry rock, I think in some cases we've made our tanks too clean and sterile. In some dry rock systems, it takes an incredibly long time to mature. We have fewer hitchhikers and less nuisance alage like bryopsis now, but we've also made it much more difficult for tanks to mature. Is it worth it? Have we thrown out the baby with the bath water? I don't know. That depends on the reefer and how quickly the dry rock tank matures. I think I'm ready to take the bad with the good and see how my fortunes play out.

But, all that is a discussion for another thread at another time. We still have a very poor understanding of what makes a tank "mature" or "successful." Here are a few pictures of the rock. My phone is having trouble representing the colors of the rock accurately, but it's covered in orange, green, purple, pink and red coralline. It's truly beautiful rock. I'll update as the rock cures, as well as how my display behaves when I swap out the dry rock for the live rock.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Thanks for sharing. I prefer Tampa's method of shipping in water as it will preserve most life. Though I can understand the pros of doing it the KP way. Definitely more convenient. Ideally, I'd setup Tampa rock in a barebottom QT tank with some traps to grab any crabs or mantis before introducing into the tank. I totally agree with you on the short term, and long term issues we have run into trying to maintain a reef with dead rock relating to the lack of bio-diversity. It seems like people are beginning to put 2 and 2 together there. I'm hoping we'll see a swing back towards live rock in the hobby. People may not think about this, but live rock was one of the best sellers and most profitable items in an LFS. I contribute part of the decline of the LFS to the decline in the use of live rock. The fake stuff and dead stuff has much smaller margins and some of it has a higher retail price point so it costs the LFS more and makes them less while actually being worse for the hobbyist and hobby as a whole by reducing the number of successful hobbyists out there. A lot of people just give up after battling dinos. It's all bad business IMO. Kind of like Eco-tech products with their MAP pricing and tiny margins for retailers. These companies are also responsible for the decline of the LFS. But I digress.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

@Bouncingsoul39 agreed, I think that shipping submerged is ideal. I think KP's way of doing it (shipping overnight damp) is a decent compromise though. You still get pretty alive rock, it's between $8 and $10 per pound, and it's shipped to your door for no additional cost. For people with smaller tanks and nanos, I think this is probably one of the best way to get some real live rock.

If I ever do set up a larger tank, I will probably air freight the rock. Financially, it's cheaper and you do get more diversity.

 

[offtropic]

As a very new reefer but experienced biologist/scientist the whole "we need to start an ultra-sterile tank and try and control every single thing that goes into it" philosophy has been a bit confusing. This is usually followed up with explanations as to why certain outbreaks are "unavoidable" or predictable as the tank matures regardless of precautions taken. Followed by other explanations as to why it can take a tank a year or two (or more) to really come into its own. Increasing biodiversity would seem to be the answer to many of the issues that plague new tanks (much like sustaining biodiversity is critical to most ecosystems). Of course, we do want to take precautions against introducing pests that will have no known checks (some crabs, mantis and maybe over-large bristles).

I am planning to buy a larger tank soon so I've been mulling this over a good bit. Getting both sand and rock that come from aquaculture and shipped wet (or in water) is definitely intriguing. I sort of like not knowing exactly what I'm getting but knowing that there will already be dozens of species of microbes/microfauna that naturally work to keep one another in check within the system already.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thanks for chiming in @offtropic. I think we as a hobby made the decision to switch to dry rock for good reasons. Environmentally, it's better if people aren't destroying natural reefs so we can have live rock. Also, rock that's been out of the water for thousands of years (land-mined calcium carbonate rock) can't possibly have mantis shrimps, gorilla crabs, and bryopsis. Plus, dry rock usually ended up being cheaper and shipped easier. It sounded like an all around win.

I think it's only after a majority of the hobby started using dry rock that we started to see some of the consequences of an incomplete ecosystem (dinoflagellates, slow tank maturity, failure with SPS, etc). I think this sort of realization crept up on us unexpectedly. It's easy to blame husbandry or aquarist skill for nuisance algae or poor coral survival rates. Once the problems became more universal, I think it's harder to blame the aquarist. Mike Paletta even had a solid year of failure in a dry-rock started tank. Once he introduced some established and bio-diverse live rock, he started having success in three months.

I still don't think we understand how or why the biodiversity of live rock contributes to system success. But, it's starting to look like biodiversity is more important than we first thought.

 

[alton]

I bought the air freighted 60lb package delivered to SA by SW to their freight terminal for pickup back in December 2015 for $300 which was cheaper than liverock at any of my LFS. Kara did tell me that during the winter the growth on the the was not as good as the spring/summer, I didn't care. It came with one mantis, several gorrilla crabs all which where very easy to catch and release to someone else who wanted them. I ended up several red mithrax crabs and one pistol shrimp which stayed in the sump and now resides in my tank here at work. There was no cycle, I added frags from another tank a week after setup. I did add 40 snails to help with clean up.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I bought the air freighted 60lb package delivered to SA by SW to their freight terminal for pickup back in December 2015 for $300 which was cheaper than liverock at any of my LFS. Kara did tell me that during the winter the growth on the the was not as good as the spring/summer, I didn't care. It came with one mantis, several gorrilla crabs all which where very easy to catch and release to someone else who wanted them. I ended up several red mithrax crabs and one pistol shrimp which stayed in the sump and now resides in my tank here at work. There was no cycle, I added frags from another tank a week after setup. I did add 40 snails to help with clean up.

That's a really nice looking tank. It looks like the rock has worked out well for you

Like I said, I'm kinda bummed I didn't know about KP Aquatics back when I was first setting up my tank. I feel like I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.

 

[Maritimer]

Got some of the first rock to come off their lease after Maria last summer - one of the best things I've done. Mine was airfreighted.

(The orange "coralline" didn't last more than a few days for me, not sure whether it was the tank or the tang / angel / parrotfish in it . . . )

A couple of red mithrax didn't make it, a few gorillas and polyclads did, along with the nucleus of a breeding population of mysid shrimp. Lots of different plants, some I recognize, some ... not so much. A bit of fire coral, and even a LPS.

And suddenly . . . acros seem to be doing well in my tank.

~Bruce

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thanks for chiming in @Maritimer. I'm curious to see how my tank behaves when the rock is cured. I'm also curious to see how many other reefers have had experiences like yours.

 

[offtropic]

Thanks for chiming in @offtropic

I still don't think we understand how or why the biodiversity of live rock contributes to system success. But, it's starting to look like biodiversity is more important than we first thought.

Maybe we don't understand the specifics of it but we do understand that greater biodiversity results in greater stability for all natural ecosystems. It shouldn't be surprising at all that tanks will go through huge surges and explosions of 'pests' when we start with something "sterile". If we accept the inevitability of the introduction of these organisms (through frags, fish or whatever) we have to realize that we are putting them into environments rich in nutrients and with no natural checks on their population. Then they do what R-type species do when introduced to such environments - they multiply exponentially fast with their short reproduction and development cycles.

Using real ocean sand and rock basically ensures that you will be introducing these same 'unwanted' organisms that you have a high likelihood of getting anyway but you'll be introducing them at the same time as you will probably be introducing an organism that competes with or eats them. Dinos in tank? Yup! A problem for the tank? Nope. A lot of this stuff is going on at a microbial level. Of course, sand/rock from a very mature tank could also facilitate this process...

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

As an update, the rock appears to be done with the die-off after only a week. I didn't bother testing ammonia for the first few days. The water was cloudy and stank like uncured rock (anyone who's had uncured or ocean rock shipped to them dry back in the day knows the smell I'm talking about). I started curing the rock on 4/10. I did a 50% water change on 4/11 and a 25% water change on 4/12. I started testing ammonia and got the following results:

4/13: 1.0 - 2.0 ppm (did 25% water change the next day)
4/16 - 0.25 - 0.50 ppm
4/19 - 0.00 - 0.25 ppm

I'm going to do one more water change this weekend, but after that the rock should be good to go. I plan on putting the rock in my display on Wednesday next week. I really wish I would have started my tank with this rock to being with. There's a ton of life in the curing tank. The amount of pods I see on the glass is just staggering, and that's just on the glass. Really looking forward to seeing how my display tank responds to the new rock.

 

[Fourstars]

Great, keep us posted and thanks for sharing this supplier, I live two hours from the closet airport and been wondering how I'm going the get live rock for a new tank I'm setting up. It sure is some pretty rock!

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Great, keep us posted and thanks for sharing this supplier, I live two hours from the closet airport and been wondering how I'm going the get live rock for a new tank I'm setting up. It sure is some pretty rock!

Thanks for following along, I'll keep this thread updated. I'm with you on the air freighting, I'm only about an hour away from BWI, but I still feel like it's a lot of hassle to set up air freighting for live rock. Especially in my case where I needed so little. Plus, when shipped overnight, the rock really didn't experience much die-off. There was some, but there's still a ton of life.

If I needed to fill an exceptionally large tank with rock I might consider getting it air freighted, but the KP Aquatics overnight shipping is still pretty competitive with air freighting. I'm not too picky on the rock getting shipped damp vs in water. Despite getting shipped damp, a LOT of life survived, and I mean a lot. Plus I didn't have to deal with the hassle of air freighting cargo.

If this rock makes the impact I'm hoping it will, then I think I'm going to order 30lbs for my frag system. I'd definitely choose the overnight package from KP Aquatics again.

 

[Copedog]

Thanks Chip for sharing this thread.

I have pretty much decided to go with KPA rock for my new (first saltwater tank) 17 gallon ADA tank. I am currently waiting on my light to arrive before I schedule my delivery. I am going to go with 10 lbs as well. I also like a minimal scape.

What is your opinion on curing/soft cycling it inside the house? The tank is in my kids room. How noticeable was the odor those first few days? I could cure it in my garage in a tub, but lighting and temp might be an issue.

Also, did you rinse/scrub the rock before adding to your curing tank or did you go straight from box to tank?

Are you just using a powerhead and heater during the cure?? No filter, carbon, etc?

It pretty cool that is ready to go in 7 days.

Scott

 

[Greaps]

Thanks Chip for sharing this thread.

I have pretty much decided to go with KPA rock for my new (first saltwater tank) 17 gallon ADA tank. I am currently waiting on my light to arrive before I schedule my delivery. I am going to go with 10 lbs as well. I also like a minimal scape.

What is your opinion on curing/soft cycling it inside the house? The tank is in my kids room. How noticeable was the odor those first few days? I could cure it in my garage in a tub, but lighting and temp might be an issue.

Also, did you rinse/scrub the rock before adding to your curing tank or did you go straight from box to tank?

Are you just using a powerhead and heater during the cure?? No filter, carbon, etc?

It pretty cool that is ready to go in 7 days.

Scott

Having bought about 30 lbs before and putting it all in the tank to cycle I did not notice much of an odor at all. I ran 1 cup of carbon in a filter bag though.

 

[hart24601]

I think like rock is great, but also feel people blame failed systems on "dead" rock as well.

My 120, all ceramic dead rock, no calcium based rock at all. No dinos. System is tore down now but ran for years smoothly.

 

[siggy]

Personalty I think all that business about pest and hitchhikers is just hype from equipment vendors who tell you to buy their Dry Rock... THEN tell you that you need live sand. both systems I started, 1997 and 2017 were started with Real LR and I never had problems that I was not responsible for. But best of all, can you do this in 3 months of setting up at tank with dry Rock?..... Best of luck on the reboot.

 

[rtparty]

Really glad I found this thread!

I was all set to buy live Pukani rock from Blue Zoo and before I could get my curing station ready, they sold out...smh

Now I'm back to square one on how to start my new 120g tank. I will NOT use dry rock to start a tank again. One year in and I can't make anything work for long. Yet, all my numbers come back fine.

I'm not very interested in $10/pound though. I go super light on my rock but at 60 pounds that's $600 just for rock. Blue Zoo easily had the best value I could find and I missed out. Now I'm seeing if my LFS has a contact to get me good live rock and they won't have to cure it. I'll come pick through what I want and take it as is. They can keep the rest to cure in house.

 

[User1]

Nice rock and thanks for sharing. Several ways we build our tanks using dry, live with wet paper over night, or air in water such has TBS does, just have to pick what works for you. My first set up used live rock shipped over night or possibly even two day from Fiji in wet news papers. Great looking rock that I still have today. New system recently set up I went the dry rock route because I have a couple children in college and couldn't swing it. 150 lbs of dry Pukani later I would say it was a nice experience but one I wouldn't do again. I like the idea of seeing and learning what Mother Nature does over time to our system but the rock will take some time to look like what is posted here or what I've had in the past. Just part of the price you pay - I consider it sweat equity...

Anyway KP is a nice place. I was just on their site about 10 minutes ago getting ready to place an order for a couple corals. I'm glad the rock worked well for you and you enjoy it.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Thanks Chip for sharing this thread.

I have pretty much decided to go with KPA rock for my new (first saltwater tank) 17 gallon ADA tank. I am currently waiting on my light to arrive before I schedule my delivery. I am going to go with 10 lbs as well. I also like a minimal scape.

What is your opinion on curing/soft cycling it inside the house? The tank is in my kids room. How noticeable was the odor those first few days? I could cure it in my garage in a tub, but lighting and temp might be an issue.

Also, did you rinse/scrub the rock before adding to your curing tank or did you go straight from box to tank?

Are you just using a powerhead and heater during the cure?? No filter, carbon, etc?

It pretty cool that is ready to go in 7 days.

Scott

I would definitely say cure it in the house. The smell is not that bad. I keep all my aquariums in my spare bedroom and I noticed a bit more "fishy" odor the first day or two. After I did the 50% water change though, it smelled normal. It's just a very recognizable odor. It brought me back to the day when I received my first order of uncured rock from Live Aquaria almost 12 years ago.

As far as cleaning the rock before hand, no, I did no cleaning or scrubbing at all. I removed it from the bag, peeled off the newspaper, and put the rock in the tank. I'm using a heater and a single MJ1200 powerhead for flow, but that's it. No skimmer, no carbon, no nothing. I did a 50% water change the day after the rock went in the tank and occasionally use a turkey baster to blow out the nooks and crannies, but that's all I did. If you want to run carbon or a skimmer, you probably could. This would likely help keep the water a bit cleaner. I would definitely at least do flow and a heater though. You want to cure the rock in an environment like the tank in which it will originally go. I would cure it right in the tank if you can, that way all the pods make it in the tank.

I will say monitor the ammonia to know when it's done curing. I found by pure accident a huge dead brittle star in one of the holes in the rock. I extracted that manually on day #2. Had I not noticed that, I would undoubtedly still have crazy high levels of ammonia.