Will The Live Rock Survive?

[Manny’s Reef]

Hi everyone. I'm in a slight bind here and I wanted to request your opinion on here before I contact the shipper.

I placed an order from GulfLiveRock for their premo deco rock. We scheduled delivery for today. However, I just got off the phone with Southwest Cargo who informed me that the shipment will be in at 5:35 pm and they close at 5:30 pm. They are not willing to wait 5 minutes so I can pickup the shipment. I understand why as flights are constantly delayed. They say that the soonest I can pick up the shipment would be at 5 am the next day. The airport is in Boise where night temperatures are currently falling to around 25-30 degrees. Am I going to get 100% dead rock if I accept the cargo tomorrow?

I'm certain that the shipper is going to say the rock will be fine. He has an interest in saying so. But I know you all here are more honest and don't have an interest in him selling me the rock. So will the rock be ok or am I better off having him hang onto the shipment until I can get better weather out here?

I don't mind waiting. I'm in no rush. And the SW customer service rep informed me that there is only one flight that comes in from Tampa and it always arrives at 5:30 pm. So in reality, I cannot receive a shipment same day.

In advance, I appreciate your input. Thanks.

 

[Ghost25]

I have a similar problem. Ordered live rock on Sunday. They shipped it Wednesday and it was supposed to be here Saturday. Late, of course. Today FedEx loaded it on vehicle (no doubt sitting outside, in Chicago) for delivery on Tuesda!

I doubt anything will remain live on that rock. What should I do?

Well you could try getting some money back given what happened but I have no way of knowing if that will be successful.

As far as the rock my advice would be to put it in a large volume of salt water with heater and plenty of flow. Do a lot of water changes for the first week to 10 days. with my rock that arrived overnight I ended up doing x4 20% water changes. With your rock that was in transit for nearly a week you might need to do considerably more.

 

[iMi]

Well you could try getting some money back given what happened but I have no way of knowing if that will be successful.

As far as the rock my advice would be to put it in a large volume of salt water with heater and plenty of flow. Do a lot of water changes for the first week to 10 days. with my rock that arrived overnight I ended up doing x4 20% water changes. With your rock that was in transit for nearly a week you might need to do considerably more.

That‘s awful. I don’t even want to open the package. I also don’t understand why they would ship it on Wednesday instead of Monday or even Tuesday. This sucks.

 

[missourimud]

it will still be awsome. Mine shipped about 7 days in the bag/box. Wasn't all that awful smelling when i opened the bag, I gave everything a rinse then loaded it up in buckets. i ended up changing about 50% of the water every other day and at least twice 100% change. after 6 days in the bucket i removed them 1 at a time and scrubbed with a toothbrush, trying to get an black or fleshy colors off. After 2 weeks when i pulled the rock they no longer had a horid smell and i put them in the display along with my already running dead rock and 4 fish. Everything has done well. i still have living feather dusters of all sorts. even had 3 aiptasia i plucked off already! its too bad the time out killed some sponges, a large clam and some unknown coral that tried its best to come back, but i've no doubt its still super beneficial to my tank, good luck!

 

[PeterZammetti]

Hi everyone. I'm in a slight bind here and I wanted to request your opinion on here before I contact the shipper.

I placed an order from GulfLiveRock for their premo deco rock. We scheduled delivery for today. However, I just got off the phone with Southwest Cargo who informed me that the shipment will be in at 5:35 pm and they close at 5:30 pm. They are not willing to wait 5 minutes so I can pickup the shipment. I understand why as flights are constantly delayed. They say that the soonest I can pick up the shipment would be at 5 am the next day. The airport is in Boise where night temperatures are currently falling to around 25-30 degrees. Am I going to get 100% dead rock if I accept the cargo tomorrow?

I'm certain that the shipper is going to say the rock will be fine. He has an interest in saying so. But I know you all here are more honest and don't have an interest in him selling me the rock. So will the rock be ok or am I better off having him hang onto the shipment until I can get better weather out here?

I don't mind waiting. I'm in no rush. And the SW customer service rep informed me that there is only one flight that comes in from Tampa and it always arrives at 5:30 pm. So in reality, I cannot receive a shipment same day.

In advance, I appreciate your input. Thanks.

The only way to keep LR 80% (because even done correctly has die off) is to have it fully submerged. The normal wet way they send them would not matter if you waited a day or a week.