KP Aquatics Live Rock Review 2020

[Tired]

Looks like a classic bristleworm to me. I've seen a couple of nature facts sources call them fireworms, but those aren't the fireworms that people are afraid of, the big honkers.

 

[VR28man]

Yup, bristleworm. I had all kinds of them on my KP live rock. Beneficial, but some of mine got pretty big (like a foot long )

 

[Creggers]

Update on the GHA explosion impacting my dry rock. It’s very clear that the ugly stage would be considerably uglier had I used nothing but dry. Any spot of rock not covered by coralline has an intense hairdo of green algae. Grabbed some photos prior to rearranging and scrubbing of the dry rocks.

Going to do a brief blackout following the scrub down to keep the GHA at bay while I wait for my CUC to arrive.

Score another point for the live rock - pretty sure I’d have barely any pest algae if I used all live rock rather than mixing in the dry.

Post cleaning & rearranging

 

[Creggers]

Another hitchhiker to document. After shifting some of my rock around I noticed this little gorgonian? Not 100% sure what it is. Any ideas?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Update on the GHA explosion impacting my dry rock. It’s very clear that the ugly stage would be considerably uglier had I used nothing but dry. Any spot of rock not covered by coralline has an intense hairdo of green algae. Grabbed some photos prior to rearranging and scrubbing of the dry rocks.

Going to do a brief blackout following the scrub down to keep the GHA at bay while I wait for my CUC to arrive.

Score another point for the live rock - pretty sure I’d have barely any pest algae if I used all live rock rather than mixing in the dry.

Post cleaning & rearranging

Reduce white light intensity or even turn off the whites for a few days and pull as much as you can by hand and add some snails- Turbo, astrea, nerite, trochus and nassarius and a 1/2 dozen blue leg hermits

 

[Tired]

I would take a fairly calm approach to the hair algae, like you seem to be doing. Dim the lights some until your cleanup crew gets here, scrub the dry rock (but not the live!), and that's about it. Once the cleanup crew is in, don't scrub the dry rock at all, let the good algae get established, Just pull the long stuff by hand.

Cute little gorgonian. Looks like some of the photosynthetic ones, which is good news for its survival. Nice find.

Have you checked the tank at night with a red light to see if you can spot anything cool and/or potentially problematic?

 

[Creggers]

I would take a fairly calm approach to the hair algae, like you seem to be doing. Dim the lights some until your cleanup crew gets here, scrub the dry rock (but not the live!), and that's about it. Once the cleanup crew is in, don't scrub the dry rock at all, let the good algae get established, Just pull the long stuff by hand.

Cute little gorgonian. Looks like some of the photosynthetic ones, which is good news for its survival. Nice find.

Have you checked the tank at night with a red light to see if you can spot anything cool and/or potentially problematic?

So I had make fairly nightly runs down to check the tank at night - I've been mostly ignoring it lately due to the hair algae taking over.

The CUC actually arrived today and I just added them to the tank, I ended up getting the 75 gallon reefcleaners all algae crew which I originally thought would be too much but I actually think it's just right. A majority of the package are the dwarf ceriths which are so small that ~70 of them is actually the right number. The two Emerald Crabs will be easy to remove & rehome if needed and I've already seen them picking at the GHA.

As for hitchhikers, knock on wood I've only seen goodguys so far. Safe to say at this point I have every kind of good worm possible (Peanut, Bristle, Spahgetti) and a ton of brittle starfish one of which is huge. I've also got a variety of sponges and featherdusters popping up it seems daily now. Snapped a photo of him so I'm including him below.

The only questionable hitchhiker I got at this point is a mantis shrimp. He's about 1.5 inches so he's going to get to stay for a little while. Might end up putting a trap in there this coming week to banish him to the sump so he doesn't kill off my CUC but at the same time I don't think he'll be able to do much damage.

I've got a handful of pencil urchins, which I plan on rehoming over time but at this point none are bigger than a quarter so they're nothing I'm worried about.

Seen pods galore as well but that was a given considering its Live Rock.

 

[Reef man 89]

This is really nice looking rock!! I have been eyeing there website to order 60lbs shipped in water. I have a rsr250 and was set up with all Marco rock and boy never again. The Dino outbreak is out of control after multiple treatments and adding a UV. I’m just done with it. My plan is to restart tank with all live rock from KP. Did you get your rock shipped in water or paper? If water do you remember what the airline cost? Would you order from them again?

 

[Creggers]

This is really nice looking rock!! I have been eyeing there website to order 60lbs shipped in water. I have a rsr250 and was set up with all Marco rock and boy never again. The Dino outbreak is out of control after multiple treatments and adding a UV. I’m just done with it. My plan is to restart tank with all live rock from KP. Did you get your rock shipped in water or paper? If water do you remember what the airline cost? Would you order from them again?

So I did end up shipping in water and it's safe to say I'd 100% do it again. I ordered 40lbs of live rock and had 40lbs of dead rock already in the tank (I also got it from KP). I paid about $70 at the airport for two boxes.

After doing some research, I don't even thing I had a cycle in the tank. I ended up finding out that my test kit always read a bit of ammonia in salt water (.25ppm) and my tank never showed more than .5ppm and that was right after I put the rocks in.

The only detractor I can really say about the live rock is you really can't get a cool aquascape with the appropriate poundage of rock. With the negative space aquascape craze and various other interesting approaches to establishing the tank, it makes ya feel a bit like you're missing out when you can really only stack the rocks. I didn't want to break apart the live rock and risk killing anything, and was mostly concerned with preserving the life rather than making something look unique.

If I could go back I'd probably take the same approach, because it's not about how the tank looks with rocks but how it looks fully stocked with coral & fish. If you're really into a cool scape, with various plateaus and overhangs, you're not going to achieve that unless you're willing to break apart the rock when it arrives and use rods / glue to keep it all together.

 

[cshouston]

So I did end up shipping in water and it's safe to say I'd 100% do it again. I ordered 40lbs of live rock and had 40lbs of dead rock already in the tank (I also got it from KP). I paid about $70 at the airport for two boxes.

After doing some research, I don't even thing I had a cycle in the tank. I ended up finding out that my test kit always read a bit of ammonia in salt water (.25ppm) and my tank never showed more than .5ppm and that was right after I put the rocks in.

The only detractor I can really say about the live rock is you really can't get a cool aquascape with the appropriate poundage of rock. With the negative space aquascape craze and various other interesting approaches to establishing the tank, it makes ya feel a bit like you're missing out when you can really only stack the rocks. I didn't want to break apart the live rock and risk killing anything, and was mostly concerned with preserving the life rather than making something look unique.

If I could go back I'd probably take the same approach, because it's not about how the tank looks with rocks but how it looks fully stocked with coral & fish. If you're really into a cool scape, with various plateaus and overhangs, you're not going to achieve that unless you're willing to break apart the rock when it arrives and use rods / glue to keep it all together.

I think it can give you a more realistic scape though. Plus, with dry rock you can create the overhangs and such, and then mix in the live rock.

this is all dry rock and the live rock will slot into certain places to augment the scape.

 

[Reef man 89]

I just got 60 pounds of live rock from kp shipped in water. This stuff is absolutely amazing the life on this rock is incredible. Pretty much got all the same hitch hikes as you. I love when the lights go out and get a red light and the life you see is absolutely insane.

 

[Creggers]

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.

 

[Creggers]

12/25
Christmas and final update
Just wanted to stop in now that we're at the end of the year to say that once again everything has been going really well with the tank. All of the pest algae has dissipated and is no longer even noticeable. I'm getting a lot of corraline algae on the dry rock that I used to supplement the live as well as on the glass / pumps etc.

I'm including a picture of the rock, which is looking fairly mature considering it's only been in the tank for about four months. I've seen tanks at friends houses that have been up far longer with less diverse and mature looking corraline.

If this remains the final post on this thread and there's nothing else you take away - if you're on the fence about using live rock in your tank there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it's the superior choice. I've began to introduce far more delicate corals (Acropora, higher end torches) and they've all grown. SPS loves the stability and maturity that the rock brings, and I will absolutely be using KP when it comes time to set up my next tank!