What happened to all the live rock?

[Len]

James, you'll be shocked by some of the SPS (and LPS) corals available today. After our hobby imported so many colonies, there are a handful of really exotic stuff that people collect. I haven't and don't plan on buying a single wild collected colony. I pay more for the "designer" corals because they are proven to live in captivity and they are proven to look better then 99% of the stuff we saw 10 years ago.

 

[Anonymous]

Good discussion. I especially liked hearing the term "collectors edition SPS." To me they are animals, not collectors items lol! But I do know this hobby attracts all kinds of people. If you want a "rare" coral collection display, wouldn't some egg-crate racks of corals be the best?

Back to the live-rock: by definition you can't get diversity by adding a few varieties of worms and molluscs to your tank to "seed" dead rock. On a square meter of indo-pacific reef you probably have over 10,000 different species of "stuff" growing. Of course, some of it dies when you get live rock air-freighted to the US - but a lot of it lives too. I'm surprised every day lately by the stuff I see on the glass in the morning - today was a tiny nudibranch, and a small limpet and who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Cheers
James

James, I'll be sure to send you all the Hermodice and Eunice worms I find.

Biodiversity is great, and certainly interesting, but where will all those species be in a year, or two, or ten? There are only a handful of species that do well and reproduce in captive reefs, and nearly all of them can be accquired via trade or purchase of captive raised specimens. Your rock may be biodiverse when you first accquire it but is bound to become much less biodiverse the longer you have it.

 

[Anonymous]

BTW James, nice to have you back. Let me know if you want me to send you some coral.

 

[Anonymous]

If only I did not get that peppermint shrimp, I could have sent you some aiptasia frags that came in on my LR 10 years ago.

:wink: :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

If I knew how to make/use that foam rubber stuff to make molds I'd probably go with artificial rock so I can make pieces exactly how I want, but still have the look of LR.

As Matt said yeah LR does have its diversity but in a closed system typically you'll have a few dominant critters that come out on top, even people like Calfo who proclaim the renewability of LR do state that tanks should be infused with new stuff to maintain diversity (translation: LR will become quite mono-cultured)

 

[Anonymous]

I'd wager it's still a helluva lot more diverse than a tank that starts with dead live rock.

 

[leftovers]

I think the diversity attributed to like rock from the ocean is overrated.

While you meant that in jest I can attest that my live rock arrived uncured and with corals and zoo's that are still alive to this day. It also came with a wide variety of snails and starfish. Much of which you can no longer get on todays rock if you get anything at all...even live sand is usually just sand from bottom of import tanks these days mixed with dried sand to get mix - aka grunge with good.

The macro algae the rock came with too was fantastic....today's rock pales in comparison and lacks the diversity it once had.

I have even seen fish survive in rock - 5 plus owners - come back into store after having 200lbs of live rock set up to cure and report of fish in tank...good luck with that these days....

 

[Anonymous]

Personally, and I'm no expert, I subscribe to the 'bring it on' approach. I get my rock locally, and it does come with problems- we just fix them when they surface- its that easy.... we dont input rock that is obviously going to cause problems, and we 'fix' ( :evil: ) the nasties as they reveal themselves. Imported nasties like bristle worms are actually not that bad, they mop up a huge amount of detritus. Mantis shrimps etc get removed as the are found....

 

[jamesw]

Wow - It seems like things sure have changed! This is a good example of market driven trends in the hobby as well as the effect of local aquarium clubs and the great trend in coral trading - with an unfortunate downside.

I think Lefty summed it up pretty well regarding what you get w/ raw air-freighted LR vs dead rock or mono-cultured stuff. I'll be the first to confess that I have crabs 8O but most of the crabs crawled out of the rock and were in the bottom of the box when it arrived. That to me is a good sign - they were still alive! But I'm sure there will be some other crabs in the tank - but I doubt they are harmful - they never were in the past. But I also have live zooantids (green) and 2 or 3 flower anemones that survived not to mention all the terbellids and such that I can see on the rock. I think the main thing is the intangible, the literally thousands of different species of "schtuff" that is on there.

And Thales - thanks for the welcome back! I'm ready to receive corals now so drop me a line!

Cheers
James

 

[jamesw]

PPS for Thales: Check out my Wonderpus photos from Anilao:

http://reefpix.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Ph ... 3871_XYiB7

Cheers
James