I got 30 LBS of Dry rock from John at reefcleaners for $67 shipped to my door. Really was a steal!!!!


I got about 8 good size pieces (small football size) and 2 smaller ones About enough to completely fill my 10 gal to the rim.

So ill have plenty left when I upgrade to a 40b

The customer service from John was second to none! He's a pleasure to work with.

My order shipped the next day and arrived 3 or 4 days later I dont remember. Wish I would have been home...... I had to run to the post office to get it. When I recived the box it looked like it was through off a bridge and landed on I-94 and got hit by a semi...

the was no packaging but It did not matter at all the was very little breakage.

ALL IN ALL I plan to order from him with the next tank I setup. I also plan to get my CUC from him!


Ok pics
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Click to view attachment
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Ill post some aqua scape Pics when I get the rocks in the tank (Monday)

I agree! I have ordered from John in the past and his rock ROCKS!

Would you say it is porous or dense relative to quality Fiji LR?

Compared to Fiji I have got in the past it is more porous.

compared to the 10 lbs of live rock i just picked up

the dry rock is much more porous and less dense each rock has billions of little holes for bacteria and the rock is very light weight


I was debating between this and dry fiji and I am glad I went this way the rock also looks much better I believe

Oh yeah?

I wouldn't have guessed that but it's good news.

ill see if i can get a macro with this ####ty camera

+1 Nothing but good things to say about John.

The dry rock I got from John was delivered 10 months ago. One piece of advice - rinse, rinse, rinse. I just arranged my aquascape on the bare glass and added live rock to seed it before adding sand around the structure, and there was a lot of dust and sediment in all of those cracks and crevices. Even before rinsing, you might use a can of air or an air compressor and then blast it off really good with a power head in a bucket of water for a day or two.

Also when you order your cuc, email John for advice as to what is needed for your size tank and then scale it back 10%, he is very generous and snails breed.

Good luck.

Brian

Agreed Pressure wash if you have one!


Thanks for the advice

yeah there will be some dust on it. It isn't dust from like cat dander or something, the rocks are in big holding containers and a lot of the rocks on the top when they hit each other create a powder that gets stuck in those nooks. I try to shake it out, but the dust just gets caught into another nook, so we just recommend rinsing them to get to all the stuff. Glad you guys liked the rock.


Fosi - this isnt the same florida rock that used to look like bricks. i know which ones you are talking about, but this supplier is good. Apparently after I met up with him he has expanded a bit and his rocks might be the new standard out of florida. Not as light as good fiji or tonga coral skeleton rock though. I know the stuff you are talking about, it used to be much easier to come across a few years ago. Some of that stuff is ridiculously light.

LOL, thrown off a bridge and hit by a semi. That's funny.

This forum is awesome. I'm talking to the seller now trying to get some dry rock for my JBJ to play around with a little.

I love the funny/good reviews here...it's awesome.

+1

Great review... My box arrived the same way! Very little breakage though, and what little bit did break off was/is used to mount frags!!!

I would use this rock every time! Good stuff from an even better person!

I never thought about that And i was Just about to by coral plugs

loving the rocks john!
thanks.. i ordered 13lbs and have like almost half left over...
the pic is of a 10g.. really porous rock.

Edit: also, my box was shipped all the way across the country and it seemed like it was in perfect condition.

cant wait for mine ....just ordered today

dry rock is the way to go IMO

its not destructive to the coral reefs

that looks like good stuff....how do you think it would compare to marco rocks? does it come from the same wholesaler??

its the absolute same as the key largo from marco and the reef saver from bulk reef. i would soak it before tossing it in an established system, i got a pretty wicked green bloom from it.

its dig from old prehistoric reefs that are now underground. mined in Florida. you can get it pretty cheap from some excavators in Florida if your willing to buy 3-5 tons at a time.

all in all its pretty good, not anywhere near the porisity of the spagetti or fiji rock i got from marcos in the past but its great for the price. ( i paid 2.19lb and got 5lbs free for a 50 lb order from brs)

how did our rock work out for you mrbigshot? got a link where I can get it in bulk like that? I thought it had to be dug by hand because of chipping, would be nice to get it on the cheap. Hook me up with the excavators you are talking about.

i dot rember where it was, there was a discussion about it like a year ago on these boards. someone posted a link where they were able to get it redicoulsy cheap.

you can get it for $1.69 a lb shipped from here if you willing to buy in 700lb lots, im sure you could order more http://www.justliverock.com/page/page/6544418.htm

that would be awesome, if it comes up let me know...hate to find out I was getting middle manned.

edit -
oh $1.69 is more than we sell it for unfortunately...shipping is where most of our price comes in ...oh well. If you come across the guy they get it from let me know. I appreciate the lookup. It looks a little different, my guy wasnt in this business when that site got started, but it looks like nice rock.

did our rock work out for you?

its sitting on a tarp in the garage. i used it for a little while but took down the big tank. i was having phospate issues once i added it to the tank and it created a holy hell fight with dinoflaggetes. not sure if it was the rock. i stoped feeding the fish and change source water and nothing helped so i took down the tank. next time i set the big tank up ill try some gfo and see what happens.

sounds like a bad experience. pm your name and I will work something out for you on that order.

dont worry about it, you one of the best assests to the reefing community.

thanks! but seriously though please pm me, the rock is good, if you had a bad experience I can make it right. It will help me for my own records/information too, thanks again mrbigshot!

edit - nevermind I guess he got it from another vendor, different rock etc.... never seen our product.

update when you can mrbigshot - please.

any tips on rinsing/soaking this stuff? just got an order from john and it was perfect - just what i wanted.

in fresh water

swish rock around

in fresh sw

1: swish rock around

add directly to aquarium & enjoy

thanks man. i'm taking that route...kinda. its soaking in bleachwater right now, lol.

Very cool. I will be doing a fresh 40br build soon and will definitely be buying this stuff. Anyone on the fence should...well... not be. John is an awesome guy and goes above and beyond on a constant basis.

THanks! Use a hose to get the dust. It isn't like fan dust or anything, the rocks have just been around a lot of rocks and they get grinds in the holes.

So you would say that is around 6.5 lbs in that photo?

wheres the best place to get live rock online these days looking to aquascape my biocube 29 hqi?

buy dry rock and seed it with a small piece of live rock.

If i put like 20 pounds of the Caribbean reef rock from reef cleaners in my already established tank which has about 10 pounds of live rock in my bio cube will that kill cycle and kill my fish?

Dry rock shouldn't cause a cycle if it's washed well beforehand. You will still see some algae bloom, but shouldn't have any major issue with ammonia or nitrite.

Here's pictures of my reefcleaners rock. Overall it was a positive experience.

This is 50lbs. There was very little rubble. I did not take a pic of the rubble left in the box, but there was about 2-3 lbs of rubble in the box. The box's shipping weight was 53#





As promised, this stuff stacks quite well. It took far fewer tools to stack and secure these than I expected. As you can see, it has a large number of holes and depressions as well. Also, John was very responsive to emails when I emailed directly to the address on the reefcleaners.org site.

Neither good nor bad, just the facts: although very porous and relatively light, the rock itself is pretty dense. It was difficult to drill into even with a brand new masonry bit. Don't be expecting to just walk up and drill into hot butter because of the way it looks.

Rinsing: These were going in a new tank so I had no worries about problems with existing critters. I first sprayed the rocks with a high pressure hose to get stuff out of holes. Then I swished them around in a bucket of regular tap water. It seemed to be adequate.

Garf grunge was used for seeding so I can't tell you for sure if these rocks had any cycle of their own. With three lbs of grunge, I can tell you that nitrite never got above 1 ppm and there was no detectable nitrite within 3 weeks. So if they did have a cycle it was mild.

Suggestions: maybe offer smaller size rocks for orders. That may not be possible, but as you can see the sizes were basically footballish size. Not a deal killer by any means, but I spent a lot of time with a hammer and a metal rod trying to get some usable sizes.