Reefcleaners Florida reef rock experience?

Let me share my experience with Reefcleaners Florida reef rock. Well, I ordered the 50 lb box of rock last sunday, March 28th. I got it today, so it took just over a week to ship it one state over.

I asked for pieces 8-10 inches, and that is pretty much what I got. The pieces are well porous and have plenty of holes, some of the pieces even look like old coral skeletons.

I rinsed the rock in a plastic tub and the water turned brown, so I definitely recommend rinsing it before use.

I also noticed that most of the pieces are stained brown with some type of minerals, one had a piece of quartz clearly embedded in it and another had some green stuff on it.

I've included a pic of what I got. I put the bucket in the photo to give a frame of reference of size.

I'll post more pictures when I start aquascaping with it.

 

ok that concerns me.

Brown isn't too big a problem... is it rusty brown or almost black brown? It could mineral or bacterial stains...

quartz is silica, and all it's going to do is slowly add silica to your water... with a high enough pH it shouldn't do so too fast.... bit why bother?

green... green screams copper to me. Chrome is the only other common element I know of that would be green....

... John's around here isn't he, maybe he can expand on discoloration.

Also, from the pics this almost looks like rock that's been taken from storm damaged reefs and dried out to kill of any organic hitchhikers and reduce shipping weight.... the terrestrially mined stuff I have seen is dense fossilized reef rock.

-Doug

 

I was thinking the same thing... I had mined rock before that had similar discoloration for a cichlid tank... I ended up giving it away before I went reef for the reason that I didn't want any possible contaminants.

doesn't quite look as bleach white as the rock in their photos:

 

This is what a few of the rocks I got look like:

EDIT: The first picture shows brown mineral deposits that are on at least half of the rocks... You can see the quartz in the center picture, and the one to the right is the greenish tinted rock. It looks a lot more green when wet.

 

Mine were not dark like that at all, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with them. I don't know.

 

Well I dont think that may be a fair assesment gab. the picture is of there dry rock "dry" and I'm assuming your pictures are of there dry rock "wet" after you rinsed it off. which in turn will turn it from looking white to wet, darker and where you can see the diffrent coloration from minerals. atleast thats how mine was. I had some lime green on mine as well. Copper maybe?

 

These rocks were rinsed last night and are now BONE DRY. I didn't want to take pictures when they were wet last night to skew the results... can you not see the brown deposits?

I run a dehumidifier in my house and there was a fan blowing on them all day today. Trust me, they are DRY. ;D

 

I really wouldn't worry here. If you are worried about that tiny piece of rock leaching silicates, then why get a glass aquarium? Its just because they are wet..

 

Just to clarify...Here is a shot I just took, under the same light and the same batch of rock... it's one of the whiter pieces, just as dry as the others.

I just want to share my personal experience... I hope no one takes this as me bashing their product.

I'm not too concerned about it... a little worried about leaching strange minerals into the tank, but I don't care what color they are since they will be covered in coralline soon anyway. The shapes of these rocks are brilliant!

 

I switched out rock live rock with dry base rock. Replaced some of my holey rock with John's rock. I did get a spike in algae (from none to a little bit of GHA) but I had to disturb my substrate to replace it.

Adding the dry rock is no biggy. You just don't want to remove live rock too fast or you'll mess with your bacteria load. You can add all dry rock now, for example, and phase out the old rock.

Mine looked the same more or less. In spots it does have a wet look even when dry out of the box. I even bleached some that had the black stains and after the full nuke process it still has same stains...

I'm not worried about it.


This rock is lighter than TX holey rock (much more porous) but it's heavier than my figi rock.

It's good rock IME with it.