Reef Hustle

[Abomb2016]

Saw this browsing around ebay today, made me chuckle a little, 77 sold impressive. I'm slightly jealous I didn't think if it. I periodically vacuum asterina's out of my tank to keep the population in check. Never thought of selling them. Let along so many folks buying them

 

[trevorhiller]

I've seen these on there. I actually contemplated purchasing some. Unfortunately it's hard with dry rock to increase biodiversity in your tank without shelling out big bucks on websites like this. Same thing as the coralline in a bottle, bristle worms from IPSF, etc.

Would be nice if we had a sticky thread on the forums of established tank owners willing to ship stuff like this to new people. Could be an extension of the Reefers Code of sharing grown out frags with newbies for a reasonable price.

Imagine if everyone with a successful tank on here stuck a few marcos rocks in there sump for 6-12 months and mailed them to people to seed tanks. They would be covered with coralline, pods, asterinas, sponges, etc. I think the lack of live rock availability wouldn't really be a problem anymore.

I think all these hitchhikers and various forms of life help to establish a stable tank, but unfortunately with dry rock you get nothing. Not to mention the recommendations for dipping corals likely takes off the bulk of good hitchhikers as well.

One of my favorite parts of my old tank years ago (live rock) was discovering new hitchhikers in the tank. (Asterinas, Bristleworms, pineapple sponges, coralline, etc.)

 

[Abomb2016]

Agreed, I love all the life that a Reef tank provides, how there's something growing in every nook and cranny. I've got somewhere around 200 lbs of rock. It all started as dry rock with about 20 lbs of liverock seeded in with it. A few lbs of liverock will bring an amazing amount of hitchikers. I'd consider a hunk of liverock maybe a better investment than purchasing hitchhikers individually. Of coarse liverock runs the possibility of bringing unwanted hitchikers, but also makes cycling dryrock a whole lot easier.