Anyone have pics of Gulf View LR aka florida lr

[DLeAnnM]

I am interested in gulf view live rock~ aka florida live rock. Does anyone have this rock? I would like to see pics if anyone has any.

[Aiptasia]

You should be able to search around the net for pictures of this type of LR. All of the Florida LR you see on the market now is aquacultured. LR farmers take base rock (dead coral skeleton rock) and add it to existing reef zones for colonization. On average, they harvest this rock for sale after seeding it for about five years.

 

This type of rock is usually fairly dense. Shapes vary but quite a lot of it is chunky or rounded looking. It's usually covered in pink calcarious algae and sometimes has macro algaes (halimeda, etc.) and small sponges attached to it (red ball, chicken liver). It should have plenty of bristleworms, spaghetti worms and pods, although it may be lacking in coral seedlings.

 

Reviews on it are mixed. It's fairly inexpensive but may or may not have the variety of life you'd see on older rock. Then again, you're not destroying wild reef structures, so it has it's benefits as well.

[MrConclusion]

I get my rock from a LFS that uses them as a supplier for their rock, but I have no photos of it, sorry.

 

Howver, it's my favorite rock.

 

It's generally very pretty and covered 60-80% in pink and light purple algae... not the darker purple and green common to Fiji rock.

 

It often has living tube corals, small feather dusters, and often Halimeda and red macroalgae are present. Orange and yellow encrusted sponges, small sessile bivalves, and lots of worms, amphipods & copepods are present.

 

The rock is dense, this is the biggest (and in my opinion the only) disadvantage. 1 pound per gallon will not cut it! I have more than 20 pounds in each of my three 10 gallon tanks. Usually the big, very pretty rocks weight 15 pounds or more. I was tempted to buy one big rock that would have almost filled a 30-gallon cube tank. It weighed 40+ pounds and it was so rainbow-pretty that it would have been a shame to block it with corals. I'll regret that one, but I'm moving soon and I don't need another tank yet!

 

This rock travels less to reach us, and in my experience it cycles very quickly. I use Arag-Alive bagged live sand, and there's never been any any ammonia or nitrite after a week.

[divemasterdave]

if you are still looking you can find a pic of the florida rock on reefcentral.com sign up or not, but you can search for it there.