SSIA

ssia = so sorry i asked?

if you were to use it i would bury it deep deep in a Refugium. its full of crap and to ugly for a display tank. i don't think much of it, I've never tried it but its no different than live sand and that's a scam as well.

I never tried it. I think it is scraped coralline algae. Chime in if you tried it.

Currently trying 2 lbs of the sand and 2lbs of the rubble in a 6 gallon pail used to cure dry rock. I would NEVER use this stuff in a display tank. It contains some sort of fine clay and it will turn you white or pink sand to "grunge" ...

Some other observations. It came shipped in a bag in a box in below freezing weather. I was told it would have other higher forms of life like worms and such. No way they survived a 3 day USPS delivery in the winter. The second observation I found after 4 days settling in my cure bucket, a rusty razor blade. Totally unacceptable for a reef system. I will dump this *hit out in a couple of days and flush my rocks in RODI again and start over.

Bottom line. It is a waste of money for any serious reef tank and maybe even for simple cure tanks or refugiums.

I'd like to hear other peoples impressions. My rating is 0 out of 5.

I think GARF in general is a bit of a joke these days. They seem to be stuck in 1998. That and their website and 'business' seem completely rag-tag and unprofessional. Also, they seem to think their work is groundbreaking when to me it just looks like a bunch of dissorganized, waste-of-space, non-scientific mumbo jumbo. Example, "GARF BUBBLE AND SUN GREEN HOUSE"...looks like a nightmare to me.

Perfectly nice folks though.

Except for their Garf Bonsai - which is still my fave SPS. BUT, they don't even sell that frag - wtf? You'd think if they had some business wit, they would be capitolizing on one of the most expensive SPS frags you can get. A 1/2" frag will run you $50+. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread. On a related note to their Grundge, does anyone run a plenum anymore? No plenum, no grundge.

Problem is - they use NO T12 Fluorescents! I mean, I'm a 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' kind of guy, but COME ON. You can't grow high numbers of acropora frags quickly under NO fluoros. As I said, stuck in 1998.

I am not sure of this group or not, but a friend of mine is getting married in Boise and I plan to be there and if I go I will visit their store/lab/whatever it is... So we shall see what the big deal is.

I don't think they allow visitors to the facility. I live in Boise and called them once to see if I could come take a look at some of their eye candy, but was shut down.

I've used it twice and hated it, since it was ugly chucks of shells/rocks/sand, plus it was expensive.

I used it on a display tank. I just filtered out the large junk with eggcrate and it was fine. I got a lot of critters but that was about it. I'd say 3.5 out of 5

Take a look at Indo Pacific Sea Farms. They have "live sand avtivator" which comes with "mud" as well. Both are full of bristleworms and spaghetti worms, amphipods, tiny hermits, etc. A bit pricy but very nice, if you are looking to kickstart a system.

Their not in the business like ORA and the like are. They're more focused on research than pumping out as many frags as possible.




It's been verbotten for around 7-8 years now. They used to let visitors come but then there was a few incidents. I don't remember to much of the details anymore.


The grunge itself can be had by scraping the debris from the bottom of many lfs' live rock containers ime.

eh...business is business...ORA does a lot of good even if they dont give out their secrets

Hi everyone. I've used GARF 4 time since 1995. I've never had any complaint. I agree that the grunge is not pretty reef sand. It IS called GRUNGE after all. And if anyone had taken the time to look through GARF's website ther are plenty of pictures of the grunge AND the exact components, ie rock, rubble, shells, coraline alge, etc. I have always received many life forms in this stuff including mini serpant stars, and pods. For those of you who have felt the need to chime in to this, and other threads regarding GARF who, "...never used them but I think..." pipe down. If you have used them thank you for sharing your experience. I'm attaching picts of a 20 gal I set up in 2004. All corals are from GARF and the picts were taken within 24 hours of arrival Their CUC have consistantly arrived alilve and usually a couple extra thrown in. Yes they choose the corals in the package, but you are paying $10 for sps, and $6.25 for softies, $1 each for CUC, and in my opinion, an amazing product in the grunge. If you can get 'grunge' from your lfs go ahead. Not everyone has that option. OH yea, the plugs are big knarly things. Guess what? Fully cured porus live rock pices fill of even more live forms and beneficial bacteria. When I get back from Iraq I'm setting up a 7.5 nano with one SPS pack, one softie pack, 20 CUC and 3 lbs grunge. Total including shipping is $250.00 (That's 30 corals. Even if they're not show corals you know they can be traded with others.) I get purified ocean water in San Diego. I'll have the tank up within a week. After that, I'll start cherry picking my show corals.




GARF has my full support and continued business!

V/R
Diver Dave

Never used GARF grunge in particular, but I believe I've added similar things. I actually highly recommend the various muds/silts (and mixing them into the existing bed) for a very substantial boost in biodiversity. The occasional addition of new live sand, as well as any "detritivore" or "refugium" kits also help. I've even added the organic/inorganic silt that settles in the bottom of live rock bins. The stuff seems nasty, but is great for the tank as a whole with the influx of various organisms. You'll get opinions everywhere, though, and many will say that it is just a gob of mud/detritus, in which case they aren't entirely wrong. I do think detritus gets more of a bad reputation than it should, however. It can be an important food source, as well as habitat for many other animals. I may be in the minority in that thought, however.

Okay, so it's been almost a year and a half since anybody has had anything to say about Garf's Grunge. Any current experience or opinions on the stuff? It was recently suggested to me by a local research marine biologist and I was just wondering about it.

For those looking to set up a Deep Sand Bed where true LIVESAND is vitally important- There seems to be only three online options.

Indo-Pacific Sea Farms

Inland Aquatics

GARF


I've been asking around on this site who's better for a year, and barely got any responses... So I compared each by website.

As far as the comment up there where GARF acts like everything they do is is groundbreaking... well yeah, and it's done in a way where a New Yorker like me kind of has to laugh. Both the other websites seem to be the same, but it's not done in such a goofy, back-woods kind of way, if you know what I mean. GARF website is constantly being updated... by someone with a 15 year old computer. So you can tell someone is at least paying attention to it.

Inland Aquatics seems to have the greatest diversity of critters you can order, but navigating the website can be frustrating. Apparently they have a new and old website, which kind of clash in terms of pricing, etc.

IPSF has the most modern, up-to-date website, which I expect lures most people who are comparing the two to purchase from them. I dug up their youtube videos (pretty sure they're actively updating) and the facility seems pretty legit. The guys narrating the videos are completely dorky, and are really into their worms and stuff- which I consider a good thing if I'm looking to buy oddball niche stuff. The only issue I found with them is it's not clear how much LIVESAND/LIVEMUD you get in terms of poundage when you order. When I compare to the other websites- I expect you might get a pound or two... But I never called or emailed to verify.


I ended up figuring I would try all three over the course of a year since refreshing your sandbed is supposedly essential for a DSB- and figured I would do a thorough review at the end. I'll give you my findings so far-


I started with GARF because I figured in terms of poundage, they were far cheaper than the competitors. Tried to order through e-mail, and got a response saying to call them. Called them, spoke to Leroy for like 20 minutes on the phone (really nice guy) and he threw in a bunch of free stuff for me- mud, sand, rubble. I ordered the mid-sized GARF Refugium package. ...Waited a week, nothing showed up. Called them back, Leroy said he was having health problems so things got messed up at the facility, and he said he would personally pack up another package following day and ship it himself. ....Waited a week, nothing ever showed up. Sent a few emails, never got a response, checked my credit card statement, saw there was nothing on there, so I figured it was time to move on.


Next I ordered from Inland Aquatics. Ordered-




The box came with everything inside practically frozen. At first I was freaking out because I spent so much money and find nothing moving in the box... But after floating the bags for an hour, I noticed a ton of pods moving, so I decided to dump everything in. TONS of life. My refugium had more pods in it after a few months than any I had ever heard of. Clouds of little things swimming away in there. Lots in the display too. Worms gradually became apparent all throughout my sandbeds over the next few weeks. I was very, very happy. Then I checked my credit card statement... $63 in shipping had been added without my consent. I was figuring by price of what I was buying, that like every other reefing place, I was getting free shipping. The guy I called at Inland Aquatics tried to put it on me, so I filed a Credit Card dispute, got my money back, and never heard from them again. Months later- I have two fat and healthy mandarins who have never eaten frozen/prepared foods- so I guess that's what I really paid for... Although it looks like my refugium could use some recharging of pods because there's been a significant drop-off.


IPSF is the only thing I haven't tried yet.

WOW! Thanks K, for all the research and input! I noticed that you put it in your fuge. I would be putting it directly in my tank. does it look as bad as people say?

I put the Inland Aquatics Micro-Vert Starter Culture (5 pounds @ $9.99) in both my fuge and display, splitting it pretty evenly. There were a couple shells and large chunks of rubble in there... And the sand was pretty dirty looking, but not nearly as bad as people say GARF grunge is.... but with the sugar sized white aragonite I'm using in the display it didn't look that great. I would tuck it in behind the rocks next time.