Running out of live rock?

[Black96WS6]

Since online and LFS continue to harvest live rock from the ocean, will we ever reach a time when it will become scarce? Once you take these rocks out of the environment, what replaces them?

 

[William]

They take Volcanic rock [ I think its volcanic ] and place tons upon tons upon tons of it on the ocean floor.

And after 3 to 5 years I believe, they dive down and collect the rock, or atleast the specimens that deserve harvesting at that time.


so its really never coming from a reef. Its just placed ajacent

 

[powderbluetang]

they are replaced by the volcanoes dont you know how they are made go here to find out geesh...... :? http://www.aquariumarts.com/liverock.html go here and juat read all your lr question will be answerd i promise

 

[MadManMac]

Actually, some of the live rock is ages old dead coral reefs from the south pacific that has been broken away by storms and natural water flow. The rock that the others are refering to is "Aqua-Cultured" and mostly comes from Florida. It is also not usually Volcanic, because of the chemical makeup of Volcanic rock and the lack of Florida Volcanos, it is usually quarried, man-made or harvested from areas that used to be part of the ocean. Just my quick overview.

 

[loganj]

they are replaced by the volcanoes

I would like to see your reference, other than the one you mentioned, that will substantiate this statement. I do not believe it to be factual.

dont you know how they are made go here to find out geesh...... :? http://www.aquariumarts.com/liverock.html go here and juat read all your lr question will be answerd i promise

I did go to the page you suggested and found the following information:

"First of all, most of what we normally consider as "rock" is a mineral structure formed by: compounds settling in ancient oceans and lakes (sedimentary), minerals that were once melted and spewed out of the earth by volcanoes (igneous), and sedimentary deposits that were transformed by great pressure created by overlying deposits (metamorphic)." (quoted from www.aquariumarts.com/liverock.html)

This states that some of what we consider rock did in fact come from volcanoes. It also clearly states that quite a bit of it did not. The text goes on to say the following:

"Live rock is a calcareous (limestone) structure that is formed by the deposition of many species of living (stony) corals and other invertebrates, forming either deep ocean or shallow coastal reefs. Some coastal reefs grow toward the surface of the water and form a barrier to the island or continent (Great Barrier Reef of Australia) that may cause ship wrecks." (quoted from www.aquariumarts.com/liverock.html)

As I stated earlier, if you have any other reference to back up your statement that LR comes from or is replaced by volcanic activity, I would be most interested to read it. Also, I would be interested in your definition of "geesh"? It is not listed in my dictionary nor does it have any reference at dictionary.com.

To answer the posted question, yes I do think LR collection will eventually become a problem. IMO there will be stricter regulations in the future concerning taking LR from the reefs. As stated before, some of the collected rock is broken off of the reefs in storms. Some of it is broken off the reefs by collectors. I think the future will be in aqua cultured rock and man made rock. There are good references to the man made rock on www.garf.org under the name "Aragacrete" if you're interested in reading up on it.