From: walter@optimla.aimla.com (Walter Hunt)
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria
Subject: Re: [M] [R] Live Rock - your recommendations?
Keywords: Live Rock, Reef, Marine
Date: 8 Oct 92 18:05:09 GMT
Reply-To: walter@optimla.aimla.com (Walter Hunt)
Distribution: usa
Organization: OptImage Interactive Services Co., L.P.

In article <17943@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, putzolu@toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (David Putzolu) writes:
|> All right! I finally am ready to order the live rock for my reef-to-
|> be. I've got too much lighting, too much filtration, and too much
|> money in the system, ie, it should just barely be enough! :)
|> Looking through FAMA, I've found the following places that sell
|> live rock. I want to get very high quality stuff, probably only
|> one box of it. So if you reef people could please tell me which 
|> you recommend (have good experience with)...
|> 
	[munch]

|> 4) Pisces

	[munch]

	Well, I keep seeing requests for experiences with Live Rock, and never
see many followups, so I'll make sure you get at least one . . .

	I had a strange experience with Pisces. I ordered 80lbs of live rock
from them. The damn republicans took all the space on the airplanes(?) and the
delivery got delayed by a week . . . the hurricane came through and they had to
delay another week . . . finally it got to me.

	I got a fairly good selection of small and medium sized rocks, with lots
of macroalgae (in good shape) and some scallops, oysters, crabs, etc. Cleaned it
up a bit and threw it in the tank. Looked at it. Not enough :< . Ordered another
80lbs. (The first two boxes seemed like they might have been slightly on the
light side.) 

	When the second order came in, it was definitely on the heavy side. Got
it home, opened it up . . . . BOULDERS! I mean, 2 20lb rocks in one box, maybe
three or four rocks in the other! And with very little algae and growth! After
rearranging the tank to try to utilize these large rocks (I only have a 60),
they seem to be starting to get colonized. So I guess they'll work out as base
rock, if nothing else. But what a ripoff.

	So, I guess you should be REALLY careful ordering from Pisces. I don't
think I did anything different between the two orders to get different quality
stuff. Maybe it was the added delay, causing the first batch to get colonized in
the curing tanks. Who knows? The first batch has so far turned up a little
feather-duster, some kind of orange soft coral (I think - they're very small),
lots 'o nemones, a few crabs, barnacles, and tons of misc. life. The second
batch only gave me snails, and a few (mostly dead) scallops.


	BTW: Can anyone tell me what kind of creature I might have in my rock
that sits in a hole with many (10-20?) threadlike filaments stuck out radially
from the hole? There is no main body (that I can see - the holes are very
small), just these radial filaments. I got a ton of them. They don't seem to
hurt anything, but they have me curious.


|> | David M. A. Putzolu               | putzolu@cs.ucdavis.edu              |
|> | Senior Undergraduate              | op disclaimer(opinion : ptr mine)   |
|> | Computer Science and Psychology   |      Money? Who needs money?        |
|> | University of California at Davis |          I've got fish!             |

-- 
Walter Hunt					walter@optimage.com
OptImage Interactive Services Company, L.P.	walter@aimla.com
11040 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite #300		uunet!{optimage,aimla}!walter
Los Angeles, Ca. 90025				(310) 445-5718
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria