carribean or fiji live rock??

Carribean rock is much denser than the Fiji stuff. Fiji is porous and in theory much better for bacteria colonizing. Fiji, however, has to come all the way from the Pacific Ocean and loses much of the life on it until essentially you have a brick with coralline algea on it. The Caribbean stuff travels a MUCH less distance and usually has more life on it. But a draw back of that is you get more nasty hitchikers on it. Mantis shrimp, evil crabs and such.

I've heard to people mixing the 2 types without much problem.

Hope that helps.:)
 
Caribbean, or actually gulf, live rock can be from the ocean to your house in hours, often without having left the water. It is aquacultured, old coral rock dumped onto the sea floor and colonized by marine organisms. You will have a lot less die off, and a lot more life on it.
Pacific rock, like Fijian, is broken bits of reef collected from back reefs and shipped across the ocean. There is a lot less left alive, but it is much less dense (so more area for bacteria inside) and often comes in better shapes.
I have the Caribbean stuff. I love the sponges, worms and fun hitchikers. Weeding out hairy crabs was a pain. The density is higher, and a mix of the two, which would give you the goodies from the Caribbean and the porosity of the Pacific rock would be a great idea.
I would also suggest getting some of the Florida live sand as well, for seeding your sand bed. Full of worms, stars and other good stuff.
 
My live rock is carribean, and is dense as lead. It displaced a lot of water when I placed it in the tank. I got a lot of stoney worm hitchhikers, some feather dusters, and a lot of corraline algae. One mantis shrimp made it in with it, but it got nailed by a triggerfish, so it wasn't a problem.
 
I have a 50/50 mix of fiji and Floraida aquacultured rock. IMHO the aquacultured rock is not that much more dense and it comes with a lot of life. I got an open green brain coral, sponges, bivalves, macro algae, feather dusters, coral polyps, and coraline algae in various colors(pink, purple, red & green). I was lucky and didn't receive many bad hitchikers(no mantis & a couple or crabs.)
Try Gulf-View , Dale, the owner, is a great guy who will go over your needs with you.

Brian
 
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