Not much on Caribsea Life Rock - what's your take?

[savetheocean]

Looks pretty good to me. I'd be happy with that setup.

Thanks for your input, as you can see my tank is really cloudy. Its usually crystal clear.

 

[Test led]

I have used Life Rock twice now. Just got done setting up a tank with it a few weeks ago. Used a mixed of the shapes and the regular this time.

 

[OREGONIC]

I have used Life Rock twice now. Just got done setting up a tank with it a few weeks ago. Used a mixed of the shapes and the regular this time.

Great looking tank!

 

[Test led]

Great looking tank!

Thanks. I really like the Life Rock Shapes, gives a whole new dimension to aquascaping for SPS.

 

[Jim Harrison]

I would add a healthy piece of live rock. I added one piece and that is where most of the first life in my tank came from. You could also grab a cup of live sand or a piece of marine pure from someone you know. Both my sand and the marine pure balls in my sump are full of pods. I see you are in salem, are you on the local forum for the northwest, not sure if i can post a link here on R2R im sure i could pm you a link. Im sure there are others from Salem that would be willing to give you a piece of live rock or sand from one of their tanks.

Yup, are you in the area? I don't know anything about local forums, never went past this one. PM a link, that would be fine, I'll get in on it.

 

[Jim Harrison]

I have used Life Rock twice now. Just got done setting up a tank with it a few weeks ago. Used a mixed of the shapes and the regular this time.

Looks great!

 

[FLSharkvictim]

Sorry I would not buy any CaribSea new Shapes rock if it was going in my tank! I use Live rock myself but mine is old school Tonga Branch and a little Marshall Island mixed in with some Fiji . If you're going to buy any type of rock, I would recommend this company who made my had my pcs!

These custom piece are totally reef safe and HAND MADE plus they will not leach any phosphates back into your display. How do I know this, i already have a few piece in my old 120 that has been in there running for over 2 years with this stuff in it and I have had zero problems what so ever with my PO4 or any algae breakout from it.. As you can see in pix number # 3 and the rock on the left hand side with all of the frags on on it is the same rock in picture # 1. Look how well it blends in and how well it hold up after 2yrs under salt water, amazing.

On my new SCA 150, i WILL BE selecting some VERY special pieces that i have been saving for a very long time! I have one TONGA BRANCH piece that the weight along is 26 lbs. Also, I have a few custom made piece and 1 show piece for the center of my new display. If you have any questions, or need any info , PM ME..

Custom pcs that I had made:

Rimless SCA-150

Some of my rock that's been under water for quite a while.

 

[Jesterrace]

I've scoured this forum and read up on Caribsea Life Rock and that seems disproportionately little information compared to other topics here on R2R.

Is that because not many people here use it? And if so, why not?

Is it just not appealing to a large portion of reefers?

Or is it just good enough to have no complaints but no praise?

So whats your take on Caribsea Life Rock?

I'm considering going that route.

Thoughts? Success stories? Failures?

Been using it for almost a year now. 40lbs in my 36 gallon bowfront that I transferred to my 90, another 50lbs currently in the garbage can that have been cycling for a couple of months. The cons are that it is expensive from most places and doesn't offer as much in terms of bacteria and organisms that regular live rock does. That said, it also doesn't come with nightmare hitchikers (ie Aiptasia, Fireworms, nasty crabs). I will say this though, the claims about it not needing to be cycled are bull. Both sets of life rock definitely spiked with ammonia and cycled when exposed to a food source. I think most people don't use it because it is quite expensive compared to the dry rock seeded with a piece of live rock method. Although I did managed to snag a 40lb box of it from an Amazon seller for about $3.20 a lb.

 

[videosilva]

Used it for my 90g and like it. I haven't really had any big algae issues with it. There's a ton of little Feather dusters growing all over my rocks and the pieces in my sump have lots of sponges on the bottom. It has lost its purple color a bit. I had a layer of purple dust on the bottom of my tank after aquscaping but I also have some coralline growing on the rocks. I've noticed with some types of rock, it seems like coralline will never grow on it and I'm glad to see that that doesn't seem to be the case here. I also found the 40lb boxes pretty easy to work with and I liked the mix of shapes I got. I like the branch as well but the pieces are very uniform, which has its pros and cons. I really like the look of the new "Shapes" pieces.

One thing I don't like is that when you break the rocks in half, it's just white on the inside so it looks pretty weird and unnatural if you have the broken side facing out.

How did you get Feather Duster and sponge growth on dead rock ????

 

[Tiger-Paws]

.

 

[Tiger-Paws]

I went with LifeRock, 27 lbs in a Red Sea Reefer Nano and a bag of Marinepure balls in the sump.

The images below are at day 35 of the cycle. I used Dr. Tim's One and Only and a healthy Clown after a week, the ammonia levels are .025 on a Selfert test kit and no nitrates showing yet.

I believe the cloudiness is coming from the LifeRock as I am feeding the Clown carefully and lightly.

 

[RW...]

Here is a picture of my (fairly) new tank, I used Caribsea life rock shelf and shapes and their pink Fiji sand. The selection of shapes were exactly what I wanted, I’ve got what I feel is an interesting mix of bridges and hoops - and my Coral Beauty seems to like it too!

 

[BubblesUp]

I used life rock and I'm happy with it. It was expensive to purchase.

 

[JRAD]

I have used it and like it. I think it looks better than white rocks.

 

[locktite]

100% Caribsea Life Rock setup a little over 2 years ago. I would recommend using it but in this hobby there seems to be an infinite number of ways to accomplish the same end!

 

[dimidragos]

Let me know if this is off subject here but I have an update on my tank cycle with using the liferock from caribsea.

I just tested it. Using Salifert and API. My ammonia seems to be going down after the initial high spike from adding Dr Tims. The nitrite is now starting to get a high spike. And I'm now seeing a slight trace of nitrate readings. It's 2 weeks from today since initial fill up, and 1 week since I added Dr Tims. And the 2 different test kits do have complete different readings it seems but I averaged them out that's why I'm not saying any numbers with test results.

I'm almost one month now. For me was almost same. Not ammonia spike at all. First nitrate reading after two weeks. Now i still have nitrite around 0,2-0,5 ppm and nitrate around 30 ppm I ghost feeding until first nitrate reading.

 

[Jesterrace]

I went with LifeRock, 27 lbs in a Red Sea Reefer Nano and a bag of Marinepure balls in the sump.

The images below are at day 35 of the cycle. I used Dr. Tim's One and Only and a healthy Clown after a week, the ammonia levels are .025 on a Selfert test kit and no nitrates showing yet.

I believe the cloudiness is coming from the LifeRock as I am feeding the Clown carefully and lightly.

I would disagree, I would say it's your super deep sand bed that is causing the cloudiness problem (or you overdid it on the Dr. Tims). I've done 40lbs in the 36 gallon and then 50lbs additional when I upgraded to my 90 gallon and the only cloudiness was caused by my sand. Once it settled then it did great.

 

[dMiles]

100% Caribsea Life Roweck setup a little over 2 years ago. I would recommend using it but in this hobby there seems to be an infinite number of ways to accomplish the same end!

I saw somewhere some said theirs crumbled after a year. Anybody else found this to be true?

 

[Billldg]

I used it, purchase 100 lbs of it and used 90 in my 120 gal tank and love it, between that and 80 pounds of caribsea live sand I never had any issues with cycling, added 2 big bottles of Bio Spira and feed it a few times with ammonia and within 10 days my ammonia would be at 0 ppm in under 24 hours.

 

[OhDumb]

I used it in my nano and would buy it again 100%. I wanted to start with dry rock to avoid all the plaques I had to deal with in the past of real LR (aptasia, algae, majanos, etc..). The purple really helps dull the shocking white of typical dry rock and I prefer it. It does not hinder coraline algae growth at all and looks very natural once you start getting some coral growth.

I did end up adding a piece of LR for more coral room and guess what? I had to deal with hair algae and aptasia. So, lesson learned AGAIN!

My tank is a year old and my next build I'll be using it for sure.