live rock

maxalmon

Active Member
Originally Posted by NEreef
my wholesale fiji lr is more like $3 a pound plus 25% shipping. i would also assume that the rock you're getting won't be great stuff.
Wow, that puts it around $3.75lb.....Check around....
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by florida joe
Ok super premium live rock and 1.99 a pound do not really go together no matter how or when you get it make sure of what you are getting
That is a very good point.
 

maxalmon

Active Member
IMO $4.00-$6.00 a pound is a fair price depending on what type and how cured it is....Even the wholesale cost of $1.65 you have to figure in shipping, then holding, then time, then cost of salt to make SW, then water changes, gas to drive to airport... etc...Everything you do adds a little bit more to the actual cost. I tell people to get a local group together and place a bulk order and have it shipped to your airport via cargo....You can ship several hundred pounds nextday delivery for 1/10 the cost of UPS or fedX...just use hundred weight rates
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by maxalmon
IMO $4.00-$6.00 a pound is a fair price depending on what type and how cured it is....Even the wholesale cost of $1.65 you have to figure in shipping, then holding, then time, then cost of salt to make SW, then water changes, gas to drive to airport... etc...Everything you do adds a little bit more to the actual cost. I tell people to get a local group together and place a bulk order and have it shipped to your airport via cargo....You can ship several hundred pounds nextday delivery for 1/10 the cost of UPS or fedX...just use hundred weight rates
Then the hypothetically the problem is folks like this guy who works too much. And can't do that, so he goes and pays 6 -7 dollars a lb. Because he really don't have much time and would loose money by not working. It is an evil cycle. But 4 to 6 bucks isn't bad. I found a local lfs that was willing to sell the box of 45 lbs for 3 bucks a pound If I'd come take the box without it touching his systems. I figure the guy was paying around 2 bucks a pound. Shipped.
 

sambasam

Member
its shipped straight from figi to LA and then its put in a holding rack for 2 days(its being sprayed with saltwater to remove all alot of the hitchhikers) and then its put in a box with wet newspaper and shipped.
 
N

nereef

Guest
Originally Posted by maxalmon
Wow, that puts it around $3.75lb.....Check around....

when i say wholesale, i mean distributor. in Nebraska, you can't exactly drive to the nearest airport (which may be hours away) and buy things like this wholesale. it comes from the people we get our fish from.
 

maxalmon

Active Member
I'm pretty sure I know who your talking about.
The one thing to remember about LR is that there are grades based on the size or style of LR...
A 50lb box of tiny rubble is kinda worthless unless you need tiny pieces.
A 50lb box that only has 2 huge boulders in it.
A 50lb box that has a lot of dense, dead coral heads mixed in with it, I've had this happen, the whole box was nothing more than old, dead coral...ARGH...
.
Everyone uses the buzz words of "premium" "select" "hand picked" etc...It's a 50/50 chance that it may be good, may be bad, won't know till the box is opened. I will say this, a few of the people I know who have ordered from SWF have been happy with what arrived....Just because it's cheap doesn't make it the best buy....
 

koolaidman

Member
gahhh i hate these questions. its like your mocking me! i can only get $10-12/lb here. This goes along with the "what are these little white things on my rock?!" and the "my rocks are turning purple" questions.
 

grumpygils

Active Member
I just looked at their site that shouldn't of been mentioned. I think it might be man made rock stuck in their tanks with other rock to seed. I am not familiar with "aquacultered" rock? They also state that it is "made" pink in the color of coralline. Probably ok base rock?
Mc
 

grumpygils

Active Member
Well,
I looked back at it, Who knows? I pulled up another spot on the site that had it for 1.99 and it looked good? Can't beat 1.99 for Fiji?
Mc
 

keri

Active Member
It's 9+ here....and depending where you buy you get very different stuff., half of our rock was bought at one store and is beautiful, covered in corraline algae and was allready well started when we bought it and the other stuff is only now (3 months later) just Barely starting to get a couple of purple splotches....come to think of it, I think the crappier stuff was $10/lb! But...you gotta think, how much of that is shipping costs?!
 

sepulatian

Moderator
Samba, check what you are buying. My distributer, that sold only to stores (owned an LFS) sold nice base at 1.99/lb. It had quite a bit of red algae, not cayno, velvet red. It was nice rock. I highly doubt what you will get is super premium Fiji though. I bought from several places in Jersey. That was the best deal I ever got and, of course, to be sold retail there was a markup on it. I think I still have a pic of a piece that was in one of my tanks. Don't look at the terrible diatoms

 

sk8shorty01

Active Member
Originally Posted by sepulatian
Samba, check what you are buying. My distributer, that sold only to stores (owned an LFS) sold nice base at 1.99/lb. It had quite a bit of red algae, not cayno, velvet red. It was nice rock. I highly doubt what you will get is super premium Fiji though. I bought from several places in Jersey. That was the best deal I ever got and, of course, to be sold retail there was a markup on it. I think I still have a pic of a piece that was in one of my tanks. Don't look at the terrible diatoms


Not to thread jack but I had a question. Is there a difference in how to get rid of cyano as compared to red velvet algae? I was just wondering. What causes red velvet to show up?
 
Top