Tampa Bay Saltwater

[john]

http://www.tbsaltwater.com/package.html

Anyone have any experience or advice with this vendor? I am setting up a 55 gal tank in the next couple weeks, and am seriously considering this package.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Their rock is too "blocky" for my tastes. I like the more branching variations of regular fiji rock. Also, bear in mind that TBS rock is denser than regular fiji, so you need more of it to get the equivalent filtration. Also, I think they provide too many snails and hermits per volume. Also, there have been a lot of reports of nuisance critters (mantis shrimp, bad crabs, etc) on the rock.

However, on the positive side, they do seem to have a *lot* of life survive on the rock. Also, if you read reefcentral.com, there are a lot of threads of people that are really happy with it.

However, before you commit to "the package" do some research and see if you can get something equivalent cheaper. I think their package is pretty expensive for what you get. Try talking to Tim Marvin here and see what he can do for you. Also, don't compare their rock prices to the local fish store prices. You can get live rock online lots of places more cheaply than the local stores (but it isn't cured)

[Tim Marvin]

The rock is too compact and heavy. It usually contains pistol and mantis shrimp that will kill everything on the reef. The tons of life on it is pretty bla and not what most of us are looking for as far as color. Here are my other notes:


"In our experience a tank set up with The Package will result in a tank you will have to provide little or no maintenance to, other than adding fresh water for evaporation."

Really? Reefing with no work? I find that hard to beleive.

"The turbo snails will keep the glass clean so you don't have to scrape the algae off, as they will eat it."

We always have to scrape algae, snails won't eat every speck.

"The blue leg hermits will scavenge algae off of everything. The rocks, sand, corals, plants, gorgonians, anywhere and everywhere they will go and clean up the algae for you."

As well as eat snails and other loivestock, to include each other.

"The serpent and brittle stars will live under the rocks and provide two advantageous results. They will eat any foods that get by your fish and inverts, and end up on the bottom of the tank. Plus their natural living accommodations are under rocks where they will excavate the sand, creating a home for themselves and stirring the sand under the rocks preventing any dead zones in your substrate."

They do not move all over and will not sift all the sand. Big sand sifters will kill the sand bed of critters and cause cyano outbreaks. They have been know to eat fish also, so caution is my advice.

"The tiger tail cucumbers are sand eaters. They process the sand through their gut at an amazing rate, just as in nature cleaning it of detritus for their food."

These I have found to be good.

"The shrimps have multi purposes also, cleaning, stirring, feeding. They will live in, on and around the live sand. Digging, sifting, and continually spawning, creating a very valuable natural food source for your other reef inhabitants, fish, corals and inverts."

They can also kill corals and anemones by the constant irritation of these scavengers. Again use caution, but they do produce a lot of eggs and offspring to feed the tank.

"All these animals are the key to a saltwater tank and must be added in the proper amounts to achieve success."

The key is water movement, good light, and pristine water. Without this, none of these animals will even survive. This doesn't even sound like a very good or responsible sales pitch. This is just my two cents. I bought from them a few times a couple years ago and was very un-impressed. Service was O.K., Shipping was within a week, and livestock was less spectacular than the scrapes at a LFS in my opinion. Stick to your LFS, at least you can see what you are getting and support the economy here. Watch group orders and you can get great deals locally. I beleive CB pets still sells LR un-cured for less than $4 per lbs. The florida rock is shipped in water to keep it cured, but you also pay big bucks to ship that water overnight! It will cost you more than Fiji and not as good a rock.