Online source for liverock, eBay?

Wrench

Wrench

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Sep 9, 2004
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I stumbled across some suppliers of live rock on eBay and was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with their product. The price is very tempting at around $2/lb compared to $6.98 from my LFS but I'd hate to waste the money if it's no good. 50 lbs from ebay comes out to $240 while the LFS will get $350 for the same amount. If not eBay, are there any other places to get good live rock maybe a little cheaper or should I just bite the bullet and spend the $350 at the LFS?

Here is a link to one of the auctions, http://cgi.ebay.com/SUPER-PREMIUM-C...90QQihZ003QQcategoryZ3212QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
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Also I fogot to add, how do I tell good live rock from bad live rock? I noticed at my LFS last night that a good majority of their live rock looked very bland while a few pieces in the tank looked to have a good amount of nice purple coralline algae and critters.
 
The cheapest most honest looking LR that I've found on the net for fiji is $135 shipped for 45 lbs. of fiji. I've been tempted to purchase some recently but cant justify spending any money on rock when I've got 235lbs. for my 125.
http://exoticfish.com/details.cfm?cat=0|1977|1690|0|0&id=37616&
If you do buy some let us know how it turns out. If good then I might just break down and get a little replacement rock.

HTH
 
I ordered from this company's original website instead of their ebay listing. I ordered 20 lbs. of the base fiji rock and one box of the "man-made" aqua-cultured rock which ranges from 46-52 lbs. The aqua-cultured rock is beautiful. It has really great coralline algae growth beautiful color even though it has been out of the water for 5 days before it reached me. The base rock has a couple of pieces that have coralline growth on it but for the most part it is base rock(nothing on it). All the pieces arrived in good condition. Not much in the way of breakage/rubble. Only draw back for the man-made rock is the similar shape but beautiful stuff. You may want to check their website at oceanproaquatics.com and double check the shipping compared with the shipping that they are charging on ebay.
 
Excellent advice, thank you. I will check out both sites but I will admit to being a little aprehensive about ordering from the first company considering you've not actually seen the product. I am glad, however that Magpen has had good experiences with the Ocean Pro rock. I have also found Tampa Bay Saltwater. They've got a package that they put together with live rock, live sand and even a cleanup crew consisting of snails, crabs and brittle stars. The package that they have for a 30g included 50 lbs of rock plus the sand and critters was $369+shipping. ANyone with good or bad experience with this company?

tampabaysaltwater.com
 
Yeah I'm a member of aquabid, gotten a lot of FW stuff there. I'm keeping an eye on it :)

For anyone that does a search in the future, I wanted to post the pricing info that I've found so far. Prices are based on 45 lbs of rock and shipping is not included.

LFS $6.98/lb. $329.80 w/local sales tax
liveaquaria.com, $119/45lb box
Ocean Pro Aquatics (eBay) $98.55
Tampa Bay Saltwater, "The Package"; included 40 lbs. rock, 20 lbs live sand, 20 red hermit crabs, 10 astrea snails, 2 cucumbers, 1 brittle star and 1 peppermint shrimp $266


The best deal to me so far seems to be the "Package" from Tampa Bay Saltwater. I'm waiting to find some reviews of their products before I order but it seems like good product. They send you most of the rock and all of the sand in one shipment. You are to cycle your tank with this and once the cycle is complete they send you the remainder of the rock and all of the critters. They also ship through the airlines so if you live close to an airport you can save a bunch of $$$ on shipping. I hope this deal isn't too good to be true.
 
I participate in a couple of other forums and have heard nothing but good about Tampa Bay Saltwater and their live rock. It was just a little pricey for me for a 75 gallon tank. Especially this close to the holidays. Plus the one thing about their rock is you have to watch for the undesirable hitchhikers such as the mantis shrimp, bristle worm or gorilla crab as well as the hitchhikers that you want to keep.
 
I got 30 pounds of LR shipped for under $100 on Ebay. It was shipped FedEx ground though, so by the time I got it there were not any hitchhikers of any kind. But, there was some coraline growth that is beginning to come back after a couple of months. I feel kindof lukewarm about it. It would be great for a FO, but if I had to do it all over again, I would have saved my money and bought TBS rock.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm 90% sure I'm going with TBS. Going to get their kit for a 20g tank which is 40lbs of rock and get the other 10lbs I need from a buddy's tank.
 
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