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Manado Liverock


Chrisl1976

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Thought I'd give a plug for PA and their recommendation of the manado LR. I got 28 pounds of it from PA at the beginning of March. They did tell me it would purple up very nicely. I could not be happier with that statement. Its really cool how its plates on top of each other and actually grows out from the rock like little mushrooms. Most of the rocks in these pictures were very very white in March.

 

Day 1:

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4 months later:

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Looks awesome!

Manado is definitely one of the premier rocks for coralline retention and growth. Glad you could see for yourself just how much color these rocks can bring out!

 

Anyone interested in bio-diversity can benefit from getting a couple of 'seed' rocks out of the Manado fishery... Once you've introduced the new coralline algae, it will spread to colonize any accessible areas of your existing rock-work, without diminishing your current encrustations.

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WOW that coralline growth looks awesome, Im not sure I understand though how that particular rock grows coralline back so quickly and so nice considering it was pure white when you got it...Maybe Premium Aquatics can explain it?

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There were a few chunks with some light pink on them when I got the rock, but it was mostly pretty white. Only one piece had two 2" square patches of the dark purple was on the rock when I got it. Amazing what it looks like now.

 

Original scape:

 

IMG_0192.jpg

 

 

March:

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June:

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This shot was from May 1. Once it started growing, it grows and spreads pretty quick. Little spots started showing up all over all the rock work. Kind of looks like my tank had measles for a few weeks. ;)

 

DSCF5107.jpg

 

 

early June:

DSCF5259.jpg

 

 

If you can get your hands on a few chunks, its pretty wild stuff.

 

I have a 12 hour light cycle and use Red Sea Reef Pro salt if that makes any difference.

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Coralline algae is a colony of individual algae cells, each one capable of replacing the others to form a new colony in the event of die-off. Like many benthic organisms, these algae can encapsulate themselves for periods of exposure to air. Provided that the little capsules never completely dry out, the individual survivors will immediately begin to reactivate upon reintroduction to the marine environment. Since Premium brings rock in wet, and ships it to you in lined boxes and wrapped in paper, the coralline algae are still primed to take right off so long as your environment has properly cycled water. In a hard cycle, the reproduction of the algae will be stunted until the Ammonia and Nitrite levels have diminished.

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I will admit, I was pretty skeptical when I got a bunch of bright white rock.......I worked in a fish shop for 2 years in the late 90's and I have never seem coraline algae grow this fast. When I got the pure white rock, I was like "Great, 8-12 months before I see pink"

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Anyone interested in bio-diversity can benefit from getting a couple of 'seed' rocks out of the Manado fishery...

 

Just the solution I am looking for! Can you please tell us where we can buy this Monado rock in "seed" quantities only? I plan on re-birthing my BC29 early next year with 15lbs of extremely porus reefcleaners dry rock, and just need roughly 0.5lbs of this beautiful rock to seed my reef. Where can I find this rock in small quantities? Are they nuisance algae free?

 

Thanks!

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You can specify what you're looking for when ordering the Manado rock from Premium. In the order description, just note that you're after the smallest, coralline crusted pieces available since they're being added to an existing setup.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had mine in ground shipping for three days and it arrived fully purple and covered with green plants.

 

Certainly not cheap boat rock that's been out of the water for 3 weeks. This type of rock is more expensive, but there's a reason for it. It cost much more to have rock airfreighted rather than shipped in cargo containers and Walt Smith ships so many tons of fiji that the airlines have given him a bigger discount than the rest of their customers.

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  • 1 year later...

Chris, did you purchase cured or uncured? Any invert hitchhikers?

 

Also, in that last picture, were any of those corals added to the rock by you, or did they grow out of the rock on their own? I'm going to purchase this rock soon for my new tank and I'm trying to decide on cured or uncured. I want biodiversity but I also don't want to deal with putrid rock... But I would love to see surprise corals and inverts!

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Advice from someone who unpacked Premium's live rock for a couple years... Go for cured.

 

You'll want to put all of your new rock in at once, and the potential for a massive amount of decaying or dead organic matter on the freshly arrived rock is very high. There are a lot of 'larger' hitchhikers that get crushed or killed in transit: various rock and flower anemones, shrimp, sponges, mantis, abalone, snails, hermits, as well as various crabs like teddy bear, hermit, shameface, stone, and gorilla... you don't want the rock until the parts and pieces of those things have been cycled out of the internal spaces. Even one dead crab inside your new rock can poison your beautiful fish and corals with ammonia.

 

The cured rock is not going to lose any of the biodiversity that it had the potential to introduce, and the curing process takes care of the biologicals that wouldn't survive introduction to your system anyway. The pools that we keep our rock in are 800-gallon-plus, with a high rate of flow at the surface and slower currents down to the approx 30" mark at the bottom. There are metal halide lights over the pools to allow algae and various photosynthetic hitchhikers to develop, as well as maintaining and producing coralline on rock that stays long enough. Because these pools are so huge and stratified, everything thrives in them. You're not risking a die-off of hitchhikers in the pools, you're getting the benefit of those organisms acclimating to synthetic salt mix in an established curing system. You're also getting the benefit of potentially scoring some various fun colonizers from the rock pools, like micro-dusters, terbellid snails, spaghetti worms, assorted grazing snails and some awesome little chitons, and assorted porcelain and anemone crabs that routinely crop up, not to mention a wide and varied selection of amphipods and copepods.

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I think I have to order some Monado rock from you. I don't think my LFS even knows where their rock is from! Their "cured" rock was dirt brown and had no visible life on it...

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To be fair, "cured" only refers to the actual nitrogen cycle status of the rock. Cured rock is guaranteed to have gone through an ammonia/nitrite/nitrate&phosphate breakdown, and all dead organic matter has been purged. Cured doesn't mean encrusted, or colored up, or growing...

 

The real determinant of the rock's potential is the biodiversity and the colonizers in the curing pool. That's the first real synthetic salt environment most liverock will be exposed to, and the bacteria, macroalgae, pods, coralline and hitchhikers that live in the somewhat unpredictable and hostile environment of the curing pool will absolutely THRIVE in the well-maintained, well-fed, clean and stable environment of your system. The curing pool is where your rock is seeded with all of the precursors to the beneficial "life" that we all pay so handsomely for.

 

To test any given rock-curing system for its biodiversity, you should pull a couple rocks from the bottom, let the water drain out of them back into the system, and set them on a white surface - a lid from a styrofoam box works great. Wait about a minute, then take a small scoop of water out of the system, and trickle it onto the rock. You'll see critters escape the rock following that trickle, and they'll be a representative sample of the visible hitchhikers. Premium's pools have been running constantly ever since we opened up our current location years ago. There have been 10+ fisheries that we've sourced rock from, as well as cultured rocks from various sources. This long-running, often-replenished system has built up a bulletproof biosphere that takes plain rock and makes it fantastic.

 

Some of the greatest pieces start brown without the visible life that's so desirable... It's all a matter of how they were cured and what seeded them from that curing environment.

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You're going to have a new customer very soon, PA. I'm smiling just thinking about it. How much rock would you recommend for a 5gl tank? I only ask because I had read on your site that the rock is lighter than most so less should be ordered compared to a different rock such as Fiji which is heavier and less porous?

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Don't focus on a total weight so much as ordering sizes. For a little 5 gal, you'll probably only need 2 or 3 lbs of rock. this stuff has arches, ridges, flats and holes. Fiji tends to be much more dense and solid.

 

Best bet: Order 4 lbs, but in the Order Notes specify the size and dimension of your tank, and ask for 3 or 4 pieces that have distinct shapes but max out at softball size. Your stack may look slightly large for your little tank, but the internal spaces created in the rock structure provide plenty of wiggle room for small fish and inverts. If you end up with an extra piece, chip it down into frag plugs - it's the best material to bond them to because it's where they bond in nature, onto live rock surfaces.

 

We're always happy to pick your rocks to your specifications. We'll always try to give you the best colored pieces that fit your terms, but occasionally it's a choice between meeting your size/shape and meeting the "colored up" standard. Again, the cured rock is FULLY seeded with life and coralline, even if it arrives looking dull.

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I'm very interested, but the site says cured Manado rock is out of stock. I won't be needing it for a week or so. I'm getting some money together for some needed supplies, still.

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I'm checking on an ETA for the next batch, and it takes about 4-5 days for a full cure on fairly clean rock in our systems. I'll give you an approximate date to make your order as soon as I know more. (There's actually even potential that a few small pieces are in the system but inventory was Zeroed out. Might be able to get your order from the remainder pieces - that's where all the hitchhikers will be right now since most of the rock is gone from the pool. I'll look into that possibility as well.)

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Please let me know. I'm ready to order tomorrow. I want this rock. I've been to three places today and drove 100 miles only to find ugly, boring rock with no diversity....

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I have to say the manando is pretty amazing. Being a local and seeing the gray, giant pool of rock is disconcerting but it colors up very quickly. Its pretty amazing stuff.

 

I hand picked my rock for the pico from the manando pool about 8 weeks ago and every bit of it has color now. Couldn't be happier.

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A lot of that grey color is the sediment that gets stirred up every time we load or unload rock. Those pools have accumulated a deep, rich sediment bed after running so long. That sediment is what makes the curing so fast, and the systems so bulletproof. Nothing shakes the cycle of those curing pools. The Manado comes in exhibiting less color than some other rock types, but it colors up so completely - top and bottom - in a reef system that it's still one of my favorite types.

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Etucc - you told me you aren't even ready to get rock yet! You can't count out an incoming shipment happening between now and then. By the time you're ready, the next Manado may already be in...

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