Creggers
Active Member
Hello REEF2REEF,
When building my system I was constantly looking for reviews and research around using Live Rock and found a lot of resources here on the form. What helped me choose my vendor and plan of attack the best was the feedback from folks on the forum and seeing copious amounts of pictures. In an effort to give back, I've decided to put together a review thread separate from my build thread where I can document my experience over with KP Aquatics, specifically their Aquacultured uncured live rock shipped in water. If this is in the wrong forum, please let me know and I'll move it to the correct location
.
Some baseline knowledge about my tank:
10/9 update:
Not a whole lot to update other than the fact that after about a month I felt comfortable adding some easy fish and coral to the tank. The stability of the biofilter is amazing - there were a couple nights that I threw a whole mysis shrimp cube in to feed the various critters and not only did I not find any ruminants the following day (I do not run filter socks so it's all getting consumed somewhere) but I never saw any Ammonia spikes or anything. The speed at which the system leveled out is nuts - I'm cautiously adding coral at this point but feel really confident that everything's in a good spot to move forward with stocking.
I can say whole heartedly that going with live rock was 100% worth the additional cost and risk of baddies. I've yet to find anything remarkably concerning, and everything I did find is easily manageable (threw a hawk fish in and haven't seen the mantis since). The fact that my tank was established considerably faster than going dry rock is amazing.
I'll admit something here that I will probably get some flack for, but I've only done ONE water change since setting up the tank. I never had any Nitrate or real ammonia spike that would require a water change. I only did it cause I felt like I had to. I attribute to the wet shipping method I chose, and in retrospect it was 100% worth the extra cost. I could have probably introduced fish and coral during week two and been perfectly fine.
Speaking of water chemistry, the rock absolutely sucked up alkalinity. I started testing towards the end of the month and realized that my DKH went from 12 ->7. I attribute that to the corraline algae, which is a testament to how mature the system was right 'outta the box'
Something I absolutely want to call out that can't be understated - I never got any meaningful algae growth on any of the live rock. My dead rock required a rip / clean but my KP rock didn't need anything. I've been feeding heavy ever since I introduced my fish to get my nitrates & phosphates up, and not a single bit of any algae has shown up since introducing the CUC (on the LR). If I were ever to start another tank and required more rock, I'd go 100% live and introduce a CUC at the end of the first week, I'd put money on that approach yielding 0 visible algae.
9/1/20
First impression of the rock and overall shopping experience would be a 9.5/10. The KP aquatics team were very helpful and the rock arrived in very good shape. It appears the overall ship time for the wet method is around 16 hours. The box was dropped off at the airport the night before at 6:00 pm and I picked them up from the airport at 10:30 am (I am in Baltimore FYI). There was very minimal die off (only found two dead starfish). The only reason why I knocked off a half a point here, is they used paper in the bags with the rocks. I didn't anticipate this or know that this was their intention. Given this is a new tank I put the rocks directly into my DT, and it was an absolute pain to remove the paper without some kind of bucket to rinse them in (had to throw this together last minute). I think there may be a better way to ship, and I'd gladly take a little die off in exchange for the lack of the paper in the bag.
Cycling
(readings taken on day 9/2/20)
Ammonia .5ppm
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Coraline
Really impressed here, lots of interesting colors (oranges / reds / purples) including some pictures below
Hitchhikers
I don't have any great pictures of the critters I got in my rocks, but what I've seen so far:
Good:
3 Pencil urchins
6+ Brittle starfish of various colors and sizes
1 snail (unidentified)
2 Featherdusters (watch end of video uploaded below)
Various Macro Algae
Various sponges
Bad:
1 Red crab (unidentified)
1 black Mantis shrimp
Rock pics
Going to just upload a video here as it's easier to get an idea of what everything looks like this way, at the end you can see the big feather dusters that came on the rock (probably what I'm most excited about).
When building my system I was constantly looking for reviews and research around using Live Rock and found a lot of resources here on the form. What helped me choose my vendor and plan of attack the best was the feedback from folks on the forum and seeing copious amounts of pictures. In an effort to give back, I've decided to put together a review thread separate from my build thread where I can document my experience over with KP Aquatics, specifically their Aquacultured uncured live rock shipped in water. If this is in the wrong forum, please let me know and I'll move it to the correct location
.Some baseline knowledge about my tank:
- 75 gallon DT with 20 long sump
- Triton Method design for sump (bare bottom fuge first / Skimmer / return)
- 35 lbs of dry rock / 40lbs of live
- Red Sea Coral Pro Salt
- My overall impression at the time of posting
- Cycling
- Coraline Algae coverage / coloration
- Hitchhikers
- Photos of rocks as they mature
- Any additional updates about the rocks specifically
10/9 update:
Not a whole lot to update other than the fact that after about a month I felt comfortable adding some easy fish and coral to the tank. The stability of the biofilter is amazing - there were a couple nights that I threw a whole mysis shrimp cube in to feed the various critters and not only did I not find any ruminants the following day (I do not run filter socks so it's all getting consumed somewhere) but I never saw any Ammonia spikes or anything. The speed at which the system leveled out is nuts - I'm cautiously adding coral at this point but feel really confident that everything's in a good spot to move forward with stocking.
I can say whole heartedly that going with live rock was 100% worth the additional cost and risk of baddies. I've yet to find anything remarkably concerning, and everything I did find is easily manageable (threw a hawk fish in and haven't seen the mantis since). The fact that my tank was established considerably faster than going dry rock is amazing.
I'll admit something here that I will probably get some flack for, but I've only done ONE water change since setting up the tank. I never had any Nitrate or real ammonia spike that would require a water change. I only did it cause I felt like I had to. I attribute to the wet shipping method I chose, and in retrospect it was 100% worth the extra cost. I could have probably introduced fish and coral during week two and been perfectly fine.
Speaking of water chemistry, the rock absolutely sucked up alkalinity. I started testing towards the end of the month and realized that my DKH went from 12 ->7. I attribute that to the corraline algae, which is a testament to how mature the system was right 'outta the box'
Something I absolutely want to call out that can't be understated - I never got any meaningful algae growth on any of the live rock. My dead rock required a rip / clean but my KP rock didn't need anything. I've been feeding heavy ever since I introduced my fish to get my nitrates & phosphates up, and not a single bit of any algae has shown up since introducing the CUC (on the LR). If I were ever to start another tank and required more rock, I'd go 100% live and introduce a CUC at the end of the first week, I'd put money on that approach yielding 0 visible algae.
9/1/20
First impression of the rock and overall shopping experience would be a 9.5/10. The KP aquatics team were very helpful and the rock arrived in very good shape. It appears the overall ship time for the wet method is around 16 hours. The box was dropped off at the airport the night before at 6:00 pm and I picked them up from the airport at 10:30 am (I am in Baltimore FYI). There was very minimal die off (only found two dead starfish). The only reason why I knocked off a half a point here, is they used paper in the bags with the rocks. I didn't anticipate this or know that this was their intention. Given this is a new tank I put the rocks directly into my DT, and it was an absolute pain to remove the paper without some kind of bucket to rinse them in (had to throw this together last minute). I think there may be a better way to ship, and I'd gladly take a little die off in exchange for the lack of the paper in the bag.
Cycling
(readings taken on day 9/2/20)
Ammonia .5ppm
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Coraline
Really impressed here, lots of interesting colors (oranges / reds / purples) including some pictures below
Hitchhikers
I don't have any great pictures of the critters I got in my rocks, but what I've seen so far:
Good:
3 Pencil urchins
6+ Brittle starfish of various colors and sizes
1 snail (unidentified)
2 Featherdusters (watch end of video uploaded below)
Various Macro Algae
Various sponges
Bad:
1 Red crab (unidentified)
1 black Mantis shrimp
Rock pics
Going to just upload a video here as it's easier to get an idea of what everything looks like this way, at the end you can see the big feather dusters that came on the rock (probably what I'm most excited about).
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