Live rock for $1.60 per pound!!!!
 

www.etropicals.com is having a sale thru thursday on fiji live rock!

I just ordered 120#'s of it and the total was $334.80 delivered! That is by far the best price I have ever found!

that is an awesome price!!!!!

Is this rock any good, at least compared to fiji?

edit: for clarification, the live rock that is on sale is actually caribbean, not fiji

This LR looks different than fiji or other types i have seen. They say it is more porous and a less amount will fill more area. I'm thinking of picking up some of it, great price.

Oops, My bad. I dont know why I typed in Fiji. Guess I just got it on the brain :oops: I will let ya all know how it comes out, the lady I talked to on the phone said it is teeming with critters.

The fact that less goes farther was kinda what made me want to try it. That and the fact that it was CHEAP! I still cant get over the fact that the sand is going to cost me more than the live rock... :evil:

Zero

The below is from their website. Just a note that this rock is not the same as FL aquaculture rock. From the description the rock appears to come from the Hatian reef. I belive they are one of the remaning countries in the caribbean that still allow collection from the wild reef.

Note your additonal shipping charges of
$1.49 per lb. for overnight and $1.19 per lb for 2 day delivery. Min order 25lbs.

Please post photos of your rock when you get it.

I agree I WANT pictures lol

James

I'm curious....

The regular price on this rock is $2.25. How does that compare to others on the internet? I've only ever bought rock from my local fish store. I'm sure the internet has to be less for shipping and what not, but $2.25 seems pretty low itself...makes me skeptical of the quality.....

Tk

I will post photos as soon as they arrive. I will try to take some of them in the box, and when set up in the tank.

I have seen it sold as cheap as 2.50 - 3.00 a pound on other sites, I was a bit skeptical myself, but I have heard nothing but good things about this company from the people on this forum so I figured I would take a chance. For that price I really cant pass it up!

On the upside, I found someone that will sell me southdown for 11.99 a bag! On the downside I have to drive to ID to pick it up to avoid a ton of shipping fees. However, I figure the 14 hour round trip will be worth it to save almost 300 bucks in shipping! Thank god for my XM Radio, Im gonna need it :P So, should I shoot for a sand depth of about 6 inches or more?

Zero

At the very worst it's likely to be at least 5x better than the stuff
my LFS has, so I ordered some and I'll keep you all posted as well.

Regarding my LFS I even saw them today dumping the salt mix right on top of the live rock, yah I'm sure that stuff is beaming with life....

I hear ya, They want $4.99 a pound for "Live Rock" at my LFS, and its totally junk. Looks like plain brown rock. No coralline algae or anything (barely) on it. defiantly no "Hitchhikers" I suspect that they get the rock and store it in a seperate tank long enough to harvest any cool things attached like mushrooms, corals, shrimps and whatnot.
Zero

Man! I want to get some of this rock for the price, but I don't have my tub ready for the curing...I figure I'll order it and it takes 2 days to deliver, I should have the rubbermaid from homedepot filled with 30 gallons of saltwater at 80 degrees by that time, I don't want to pass up this offer...I'll post photoz also! ...off to home depot...

Can someone explain curing? Would it be bad to just put he rock in the tank right away? I've never considered putting it in some sort of tub before introducing to the tank......

If you have fish or other live in the tank when you add a bunch of uncured rock then yes that would be very bad. The reason is uncured rock will produce ammonia and often times the amount of ammonia it produces is vastly higher than your biological filter is able to cope with thus an ammonia spike will result and the ammonia spike could get out of control and the result would be very stressful fish that could become diseased or dead.

We have a great article on the curing rock process in our articles area. You can find a link in my sig or at the top of every page.

Got the rock today.
Sorry, I'm in the process of moving, and don't have a pic.
Keep in mind I'm new to this, so I might not know what I
am talking about.

This rock would be good for a sump, or for a few pounds for some variety.
IMO, this is not a good rock to have as the main rock in the tank.
First, the shape of the rock is odd, and unless you have very large
pieces or glue, it is hard to landscape with it.

I have some gripes with the order, but to the company's benefit,
the rock did have a lot of life, and at the very least it should jump
start my DSB.

First, I asked for all large pieces, and I got maybe three 5lb pieces (out of 60)
and the rest were all small. I think at least they should have called/emailed
and said that either it might cost more, or that they don't have large pieces.

Second, while the majority had tons of good stuff like worms,
about 10lbs of the order was all dried up and/or too small to use.

Third, most of the pieces seemed to be broken pieces of bigger pieces
(I have never ordered LR before, so this may be the norm).

So I guess I got what I paid for.

It sounds like the Norm to me with the rock sizes and All.. I know some MO companies do not stock LR and have it Drop Shipped.. IMO buy Aquacultured LR for Liverocks.com... You'll spend a bit more but man It is truely worth the extra few dollars.. The Rock after you get it all in a within a few months will/should look alot nicer that it does now..

HTH,
James

Yah I'm gonna go with liverocks.com for my next order.

Guess I'm glad my tub-o-water for curing wasn't ready and I didn't order this 'sale' rock. I'm going to wait til I'm ready and go with liverocks.com, true u pay more, but get what u pay for from what I hear. I'm still curious to see the pics though.

I should have mine tommorow, I hope its better than he said his was. I ordered 120#'s of it. I will put pictures of it up probably saturday. I will keep you informed!
Zero

It's really not that bad, it's just a very unique rock.
It did have tons of life and colorful algae, and it
was 100x better than my LFS stock. Some rock even had
plants growing on it.

I think the main difficulty is in how to landscape it,
as it has a very unique shape. Right now I can't see
anything because my tank is a dirt pool (from the DSB),
but if you figure anyway of setting it up, let me know!

At the very least our tanks are going to look very different
from conventional reef tanks.

Do they ship to Canada?

Yes, I have e-mailed them in the past and they have confirmed they will ship to Canada. They can also help you figure out the freight cost if you tell them exactly where it's going... They are quite helpful and responsive.

Cheers
Steve

I called eTropicals there a while ago and the guy told me that they dident ship to Canada. Hmm... Are we talking about the same company :?:

Sorry, thought the subject was HiRock. I have no idea about E-Tropicals.

Cheers
Steve

Ok, i got my rocks... Here are some Pics!
 

I got my rocks and I am so far pretty impressed. There were a couple of things I was not too happy about as far as how it was packed (Not wrapped in damp newspaper and no heat packs) but everything seems to have made the trip ok.

I saw in a previous post that a user received all small pieces, and I believe I know why. They called me and told me they were out of rock due to the overwhelming response on the sale on weds and said they would be receiving a new shipment on thursday and would overnight it to me so I would still have it by friday. You probably received the last of what was left from their existing stock.

I did receive my order on friday and I had almost all LARGE pieces (See photos below). unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control ( The fish store was out of salt, Imagine that.) I did not get to put the rock in till saturday afternoon. It does not seem to have suffered too bad due to the delay though.

On a side note, I drove all the way to Idaho (7 hours each way) to get my sand from a LFS there (ok, not a Local Fish store for me :wink: ) and they were FANTASTIC!

I purchased 450 pounds of southdown, A HUGE lionfish that was just beautiful and healthy, A really cool porcupine puffer that has the coolest disposition(He will chase a piece of krill I stick into the end of a piece of rigid airline all around the tank), 20 narssisus snails and 20 blue leg hermit crabs, a large starter culture of green water, and about 25 empty snail shells for the crabs to grow into. All of this only cost me around $138.00!!!

Ok, Hopefully I can figure out how to attach images into this message so you can see my live rock pictures and my cloudy tank full of rock (you can barely see some of the rock in the tank)

Here is the first box I opened



https://www.geocities.com/bigdraggero...loseup_web.jpg

Here is the second box I opened

https://www.geocities.com/bigdraggero...loseup_web.jpg

This picture is of one rock! its almost the same size of the box! I recieved about 4 of these monsters, but this was the largest.

https://www.geocities.com/bigdraggero...G_rock_web.jpg

And this last photo is my 120 gallon milk shake with a side of rocks...

https://www.geocities.com/bigdraggero...y_tank_web.jpg

Holy image size batman... 8O

If you want to send those to me I can shrink them down so they fit in the screen (my username)@aquariumadvice.com. 480x640 is a better pixel size for viewing. Or you can just edit the post to link the url's

Great rock BTW. :thumb:

Cheers
Steve

what happened to the pics?

Ooops, My bad. :oops:

I linked to the wrong file size, Then I edited it and linked to the proper size. I am unsure as to why its not working now. the first 2 pics are not showing up for some reason. Is there a limit to the size or number of photos you can have in one post?
Zero

And BTW... Now thats funny.

Apparently I must have received the last of the batch, as my rock looks like "live rubble" compared to yours. I emailed the company, as this is ridiculous.

Feel free to send them my pictures along with copys of yours and ask them if they consider it equal product. Did you happen to get pictures of yours yet?

Of the three boxes i got, I would say 90#'s out of the 120 were in pieces larger than 8 inches. and about 20% of that was larger than 12

I hope this helps you out some, and keep us informed on your issue.

Zero

Is there a reason I cant see the pictures when I view this page? Can anyone else?
Zero

right click on the image, copy the properties, and paste into a browser address bar, that worked for me. Rock looks good!

Thanks. I was just wondering if I was doing something wrong as alot of people seem to post them within the body of the message, I figured I was just borderline retarded :D

I agree that the rocks look good, however I agree with what Nightspirit said, Arranging them is gonna be... Different. They are very tall and flat, not normal rock shaped, I guess I can figure something out, but i am gonna wait till the rest of the milk settles out of my tank :lol:

I got a response. I don't think they even read the whole email,
it appears they just sent a generic response. My whole
email was about how the pieces were very small and
a good portion of it was rubble. Nowhere did I mention the
"life" of the rock.

Here is their response:

We apologize that the rock you received did not have the life on it as you friend's rock did. This rock does have to be cured before it is added into the tank, and during this process a lot of the life that is on the rocks can be lost. Once the curing process is done, and the rock is added into the tank you should be able to see a lot of the coraline algae return on the rocks. It will take some time, and the correct water conditions for this to happen, but you will see this life return. The amount of life that comes on the rocks will depend on what we are able to harvest from the wild. So it may not be that you received the last of the rock, but this rock does not have the same life on it. As long as this rock is cured, and then added into your tank you should see a lot of this coraline algae return to the rocks.

Duh, I already knew this.

Try calling them. People are allways alot more likely to blow you off in E-mail then over the phone I have found.
Zero

Geocities does not allow hotlinking (ie linking the image's from websites other than the website teh files are stored on). Thus the only way to see them is how Triggerhappy described.

Ahh, I did not know that. Anyone know a good site for free web storage that allows hotlinking?
Zero

I dont know of any free sites that allow hotlinking but remember you have a 1mb quota to upload photos here in the forums as well as a 1mb quota in the photo gallery.

opps. I see your an alumni so that would give you a 4mb quota for the forums and a 4mb quota in the photo gallery. Thusyou could upload the photos here. Remember the file size limit for photos uploaded to the forums is 100KB and the file size limit in the photo gallery is 250kb.

wow, so coralline is their description of "live rock"? Didnt know coralline was used as the basis for live rock. Sounds like a bunk place to me.