to cope or not cope, with livestock delays

[islandreef]

is ur name Brendon ? Which i think it is .. U should know better ..
The rock will come back..
Live rock is a word..as soon as it is taken out of the water i..The die off starts ..

 

[Adamc1303]

I once ordered live rock rubble from premium aquatics and I got very nice size pieces of live rock that were covered in coraline. There is no excuse for this. Call your credit card compay and dispute. That usually gets enough attention for a decent size refund so at least you pay the rate for dead rock.

 

[ssdawood]

In his defense that rock does look like base rock kept in water to seed. I was looking at that same type of rock on live aquaria for my rank. I though it would be fresh from fiji with a lot of life on it. See the pics on live aquarias site. That rock does not look like that. I know live aquaria is the best. I only buy from them too. But this customer has right to complain. The rock has minimal life on it even if its dying. They could have done better.

 

[LBC]

Like clockwork, once I cross-posted this complaint (which has turned not into about delay, but into misrepresentation) on the Cali reefs forum, I finally got an email confirming they got the pics and after contacting their 'Coral Farm' practically next door to me in Gardena, have agreed to issue a full refund without my having to return the rock (already charged me $70 to ship). Since I still have the rock, I will try to get some more pics of the rick before I pull the plug, when I get around to it.

Thanks for you guy's opinions whatever they have been. It was refreshing to see a mixed point of view as well as after much complaining online & to BBB, to get a refund in a time frame of just over 3wks. Despite having spent on power/lighting to try and recover the coralline and 'variety of life' they continue to swear is present on the rocks which they claim has been air-shipped from fiji as opposed to boat shipped, the more apparent it is this is one case where the evidence amounts in a turn in the trade from honest descriptions to one where the demand (an 30% increase in LR sales by the industry each year is unsustainable unless some vendors are taking short cuts, and hobbyists are accepting a reassignment of what 'live rock' now means).

I mean, some people may realize the transhipped live rock chock full of life that actually was flown in via air is a thing of past, but may have not realized vendors are still claiming their live rock is still flown in via air to preserve as much life, when in practice, the stark opposite is being done, with rock sitting on boats drying out apparently for weeks on end killing off 100% of life other than deep anaerobes & dry bacterial spores, then the rock scrubbed, resubmerged for what looks like mere weeks, then high-volume sold online as air-transhipped premium, select live rock.

At best, it's live base rock. For some hobbyists to now accept live rock being fully dehydrated while on boats (to cut supplier overhead costs), likely scrubbed clean of any life (which more easily falls/flakes off when dry) before it even touches water again, then rehydrated and shipped by air as premium live rock, is a shame to the hobby in my opinion because if the rock is being ripped out of ecosystems at larger scale due to current demand then why in the world not preserve the life on it instead of just deliver crap to people after having ripped it out of reefs already?

This experience has made up my mind, that from now on I will only support aquacultured rock, and hope to see true live rock 'farming' operations based on synthetic calcium-carbonate crafting to support the growing demand for live rock, now that the transhipped rock system has turned into 'Blood Diamond' sort of shady vendor trade.

 

[Geraud]

As I told you here before... I got my own live rock from Premimum Aquatics (Bali Alor) and could not have been happier with the quality.

Something else you might consider, is that LA themselves might receive poor shipments from time to time...

No matter what, glad they accepted to refund you, that rock does look pretty unimpressive.

 

[LBC]

This afternoon I drove out to West LA to visit a dude who resells from home.

He bragged about selling around a dozen 50lb boxes per week every week, and the stuff's premium fiji.

Indeed, his house looks like a new distributorship is being born, and more power to him. Sadly though, the rock was sitting there in piles and he said he picked them up yesterday from the airport but its obvious whoever's transhipping them is not even bothering to wet-pack the rock between at least a few sheets of newspaper per box anymore; its just rock tossed in box and now sitting there another day or two or how much longer in someones house waiting to be sold, already dry.

A decade ago, this practice would be so unacceptable. I remember back then, the LFS would be unloading the LR boxes the moment they got back from the airport and be unwrapping the wet newspaper and you'd see all the SPS fragments, sponges, macroalgaes, and crabs still on the rock.

I fondly remember even an identified damsel survived its 2nd day air journey from Jeffs Exotic Fish to me in NY among many inverts. Those were the days.

As for boxes of bone-dry transhipped rock, lowered Premium Select standards, and hit-miss weeks for LR shipments.. these are the days