Favorite Live Rock: Fiji, Pukani, Tonga, Gulf, Artificial, Aquacultured or Other?

What is your favorite type of live rock?

  • Fiji Live Rock

    Votes: 93 23.3%
  • Tonga Branch Live Rock

    Votes: 49 12.3%
  • Pukani Live Rock

    Votes: 91 22.8%
  • Gulf Live Rock

    Votes: 26 6.5%
  • Artificial (man-made or synthetic) Live Rock

    Votes: 69 17.3%
  • Aquacultured Live Rock

    Votes: 46 11.5%
  • Other (please explain in the thread)

    Votes: 26 6.5%

  • Total voters
    400

ClownWrangler

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 2, 2020
Messages
680
Reaction score
646
Location
Tacoma, WA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Has anyone ever added 20 lbs or say 40lbs of Mariculture live rock from florida keys right to there established tank if live rock was shipped in water? It sound risky but curious.

I am having what I perceive as just OK results with tons of cured live rock and considering doing something like this. Saw plenty of videos from advanced aquarist describing poor or failed tanks were dry rock failed to estiblished filtration well for a reef tank. I struggle myself to keep nutrients down with modest feeding and a refugium filled with chaeto.

Results now hover at 1.11 to 0.15 phosphate and 10 ppm nitrate. Algae is non existant and coraline grow well. N:p ratio. Alkalinity is steadily increasing every week however.

All you need is a few pieces of live rock. It will seed the rest fairly quickly. The mistake people make is starting off with a full bio load along with dry rock. A tank started like that should be inverts only with light feeding until well established.
 

liverock

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
May 6, 2015
Messages
277
Reaction score
693
Location
Florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I have seen great results with each of these listed, but if I had a choice it would be live Marshall and Tonga. Most unique in my opinion. I am all for no longer harvesting the live from from the oceans/reefs, but it would be great if someone started putting tons of the "Man Made" stuff out in the ocean and then sold it as live. The man made stuff is great for not destroying habitats and is easy to scape, but it really sucks when starting a new system dead IMO.
 

Belgian Anthias

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 31, 2017
Messages
1,480
Reaction score
675
Location
Aarschot Belgium
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I voted "other."
Only someone living at the see shore has the possibility to use "ALIVE rock". All other suggestions are not what may be considered to be "ALIVE rock" One does not need stones to introduce diversity. On the other hand, any stone is "LIVE rock "as it always will be covered with life. For aqua-scaping one just needs base rock, self produced or natural. For bio-filtration one does not need so called "LIVE rock" at all. Any aqua-scaping used may provide the needed space. One cm of sand will provide more usable space as will all rock one is able to put in the tank. ref: MB Levend steen Anthias 2017-2019
 

Knology

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 19, 2018
Messages
106
Reaction score
270
Location
Atlanta, GA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I miss Pukani. Was and always has been my favorite.

That being said, a lot of the more popular negative space setups now can be accomplished with the cheapest of dry rock and time/glue. We stopped focusing on how great the rockwork was alone and realized it was what space we needed down the road. No more walls of rock.

Pukani just looked so natural with whatever you did with it. Plus it was so light.
 

LiverockRocks

Gulf of Mexico Living Rock Farmers
View Badges
Joined
Apr 6, 2021
Messages
685
Reaction score
1,387
Location
Tampa
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Walt Smith rock aquacultured by TBS is our favorite: easy to build aquascapes with it, full of diverse life forms and the added benefit of being reef friendly.
 

chaoticreefer

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 23, 2014
Messages
237
Reaction score
192
Location
Southern California
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I haven't had much experience with LR in the course of my reef keeping, always had only 1 tank at a time (2 total). Currently, I have a sculpture made out of Tonga but I had gotten it as second hand and dead. The rest of my rock was just dead dry rock, I can't even tell you what kind. Boy...I can't tell you all of the problems I had with this tank since I jumped back into hobby in 2014. Back in the day (1999) when I first started this hobby you could buy Walt Smith's raw live Fiji rock. Man...that rock had life on it, not just bacteria (which is what ridiculously called live these days), but it was totally covered in thick coralline, it had crabs, big brittle starfishes, huge bristle worms (like a foot long, back then they didn't cause any problems, not sure why people say they do, but they kept my tank clean and I had handled them with my bare hands), and all of the small creatures, etc. It made the tank interesting, you still saw things popping up out of nowhere years after from getting the rock. I did get a mantis from it, but it was well worth the hassle. When I think about what I did to that rock when I needed a break from the hobby due to having to work a lot of mandatory overtime at that time (2007-2008) I get disguised at myself, I should've stayed in the hobby and somehow tried to work through it.

So...my favorite rock was/is Fiji.
 

dkeller22

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 9, 2021
Messages
74
Reaction score
112
Location
USA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I picked Fiji because I already had 400 lbs of it. It should have been dead rock from sitting in dry tanks for a decade, but something must have survived all that time because I have pods and I think I saw a worm that just shouldn't be there.

Life will find a way.
 

thatone08

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
May 16, 2021
Messages
1,117
Reaction score
6,183
Location
plainfield
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I’m new to the hobby so I have only had manmade from my LFS, but so far it does the job, but would like to expand and try different types. Preferably man made more porous options if that’s a thing.
 

waterskiguy

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 23, 2013
Messages
265
Reaction score
248
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My favorite, by far, is Pukani. Naturally attractive grain, lite weight, easy to chisel into shapes, porous, lots of tunnels and caves etc. It does have its negative attributes but the positive ones far outweigh them.

All but two choice Hawaiian pieces of live rock, in my tank, are Pukani and I've been able to collect another hundred or so pounds to add for my next tank.
 

ThRoewer

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2016
Messages
1,251
Reaction score
1,944
Location
Fremont, CA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Not true. Plenty of places sell live rock. They are usually sold as zoa colonies attached to a live rock. They sell them on LA. My LFS also also has Fiji collected live rock on hand. I don't know if its true Fiji rock, but its definitely reef rock as there are skeletons mixed in. However I personally think its a bad practice to remove large amounts of reef rock from reefs. Coral can be harvested sustainably, but reef rock not so much.

I think a good approach is to use artificial rock to fill in the background and add a few pieces of real live rock towards the front.
Live rock is usually loose rubble, corals that have broken lose during a storm, died off and got encrusted with coralline algae or coral gravel that got baked together by coralline. It is pretty much a renewable resource.
And if you think that stopping the export of these rocks means they remain in the ocean or that there will nothing be broken off the reefs, you are mistaken because live rock and entire corals are used as building material on those islands. It's pretty much all they have there aside from coco-palm materials.
 

Robert Ranciato

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
May 21, 2016
Messages
704
Reaction score
342
Location
Connecticut
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
Years ago when you could actually buy real live rock, I would have said marshall island, but since actual live rock is no longer available, Pukani by far for me. Less dense, has a ton of holes, and is easy to chisel away for aquascaping. Unfortunately you can't buy live pukani anymore.
I thought people can't get pukani any more?
 

KrisReef

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
May 15, 2018
Messages
11,520
Reaction score
27,295
Location
ADX Florence
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
1. What is your favorite type of live rock and why?

I like The Who!
the who moonie GIF by Vevo
GIF by The Who
GIF by The Who
Because no one does the wheel any better!


2. What type of rock makes up the majority of the live rock in your reef aquarium?

I have a random mix in my reef tank of rock I have collected and scrounged from other reefers tanks seeking diversity of microbes and sponges, etc.

Bernie Sanders Diversity GIF by Democratic National Convention
 

galantra

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 16, 2019
Messages
672
Reaction score
161
Location
Greenwich
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I love pukani rock. The designs and looks are way better than any other rock I use. Whenever I can find a good deal on some I buy just to have some extra pieces on hand since you never know.

If I had to pick hands down PUKANI.
 

jda

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
14,325
Reaction score
22,134
Location
Boulder, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This goes WAY back, but Marshall Island was the best rock. Probably predates most of the people on the board and seemed to stop mid 2000s. It was very porous with great structure. It was a few bucks more a pound, but there were some basketball sized hunks that weighed like 8-10 pounds where a gulf rock would be more like 25 and some Fiji (any kind) would be more like 20. Stuff was awesome.

This goes back even further, but I have some GBR rock in my tank that a shop had in the early 1990s. It is still nice rock too.

Vanatu was nice too.

Some of the nice rock was banned from the source not for the reefing hobby but for other abuses. Marshall Island rock, for example, was banned to be collected because locals were pulling up many tons if it and using it as roadbase and for other large construction projects... that is not very renewable. Some tried to keep the aquarium industry going since there appeared to be an abundance, but it was too late. If you ever see MI rock for sale on the used market, buy it even if you have to work the nasties out if it (it is cheap and easy, just takes time).
 

Buckster

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 23, 2020
Messages
2,404
Reaction score
15,653
Location
Pawleys Island, SC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I don't remember which live rock I had in my first tank. My second time around is a mixture of 3- live rock (Don't know origin) , manufactured and from Florida. The florida rock in mined inland and is similar to the reefs.
 

Koigula

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Messages
450
Reaction score
321
Location
Charlotte. NC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
All you need is a few pieces of live rock. It will seed the rest fairly quickly. The mistake people make is starting off with a full bio load along with dry rock. A tank started like that should be inverts only with light feeding until well established.
Really not my situation and I am discussing adding a few pieces to a fairly stable established Algae free tank. I might talk to KP Aquatics by phone and see what they have to say.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 68 37.8%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 32.8%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 13.9%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 28 15.6%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
Back
Top