Premium Fiji or Gulfview

[LSUtiger]

Hello. I'm looking at the Fiji from premium aquatics or the Deco from gulf-view. Any suggestions? What could I expect from each as far as life and color goes.

 

I will be using this rock to cycle my 7G, so would most of the life on the Deco rock die off and not return?

 

Does anyone have both and prefer one more than the other?

 

It seems like most have either of these 2 types. Thanks in advance for the responses.

 

Mark

[printerdown01]

I would wait to see what Chromis' rock from liverock.com looks like... As it sounds like their customer service is awesome! I have seen some GulfView rock that looked AWESOME in the past though...

[SteveC]

I think it would depend on a few of things. Gulf-View (or liverocks.com or tbsaltwater.com) rock is going to have more life on it, simply due to logistics (less time out of water, closer to the source, etc.). If you want a lot of free critters (good and bad), go Gulf. Also, I think it's important to put your money where your mouth is, and since I consider myself an environmentalist I definitely want to support LR aquaculture.

 

OTOH, if you're doing an otherwise Indo-Pacific reef you might be happier with only Indo-Pacific hitchhikers (depends on how much of a purist you are, I suppose). From what I've read, Fiji rock is harvested in a sustainable manner, so even a tree-hugger (reef-hugger?) like me would probably be OK with it.

 

I love my Gulf-View rock and I thought the customer service was excellent, but from what I've heard you can't go wrong with any of the reputable online LR suppliers. The deciding factors for me were (1) I wanted to see lots of critters and (2) Gulf-View's DHL shipping arrangement was cheap and convenient.

 

I was not disappointed. The rocks are covered in coraline algae and came with tons of life on them. I listed the critters I've found to date in another thread (do a search), and you can add a tiny urchin to that list (it's cute! and I'm glad I found it by sight). I'm finding something new almost every day in my month-old nano-reef. So far, only 3 aiptaisia and no mantis shrimp (knock wood) in 20 lbs of rock.