New LR help / whats good or bad? Check my photos plz

everything in that dish is bad.. you got a mantis shrimp eh? you are lucky you found him, he would of caused major havoc in your tank. if it was me i would scrub everything that is growing on that rock off and I mean everything. cook the rock in a rubbermaid tub with a heater and powerheads. change the water frequently do this for a month.

 

The rock looks like it's right out of the ocean.................not good.   There's usually people in the group selling live rock, I would wait for some new stuff.

 

Looks like the makings of a really neat SW planted tank of sorts.

 

where did you get it at? looks like so FL rock and was/is that mantis still alive?

 

yeah could make a pretty cool display refugium

 

the orange looks like a sponge like this http://www.aphotomarine.com/sponge_suberites_ficus_sea_orange_sulphur.html, that rock looks like really good refugium rock if you have one of those with all that macroalgae on it!

 

http://www.livestockusa.org/CURING.html

 

they make cool little creatures in a species tank but they will eat crustations and kill fish. move and smash rocks .

do a youtube search on em. very cool creatures and I am planning on having a tank for one at some point but not in my reef.

 

Oh man, yeah that is the wildest live rock I've ever seen and I've seen THOUSANDS of pounds of LR right out of the box (usually Walt Smith). They didn't market this as "cured" live rock did they? Hard to say if that stuff was collected sustainably, most often rock "farmers" will place dry rock in the sea and allow it seed over the course of a couple of years before harvesting, but never in a zone this rich in macro flora. In fact what you can see there is a large patch of deadmans fingers (Codium fragile) This stuff is commonly characterized as the most invasive species of macro algae in the world, and is typically found in sub-tropical/temperate zones.
With established flora and fauna this dense on these rocks, this stuff has got to be cooked before it can be used. And any of that sponge is DEAD. Sponge doesn't tolerate oxygen very well, and I'm sure they shipped it in wet newspaper, essentially dry, which is fine for most stuff, but if there is sponge penetrating throughout the pores of that rock, it's going to rot and smell and decay for weeks! I would def get that stuff cooking!
I couldn't make out the slugs, but they're likely a type of nudibrach, sea cucumbers, or nascent species of snails. In most of these cases they're harmless, unless they're dead and are beginning to decay, however, if they are young snails which haven't developed their shells yet, the species will need to be determined before we can determine whether they're going to be a problem. It looks interesting to say the least!

 

Oh man, yeah that is the wildest live rock I've ever seen and I've seen THOUSANDS of pounds of LR right out of the box (usually Walt Smith). They didn't market this as "cured" live rock did they? Hard to say if that stuff was collected sustainably, most often rock "farmers" will place dry rock in the sea and allow it seed over the course of a couple of years before harvesting, but never in a zone this rich in macro flora. In fact what you can see there is a large patch of deadmans fingers (Codium fragile) This stuff is commonly characterized as the most invasive species of macro algae in the world, and is typically found in sub-tropical/temperate zones.

With established flora and fauna this dense on these rocks, this stuff has got to be cooked before it can be used. And any of that sponge is DEAD. Sponge doesn't tolerate oxygen very well, and I'm sure they shipped it in wet newspaper, essentially dry, which is fine for most stuff, but if there is sponge penetrating throughout the pores of that rock, it's going to rot and smell and decay for weeks! I would def get that stuff cooking!

I couldn't make out the slugs, but they're likely a type of nudibrach, sea cucumbers, or nascent species of snails. In most of these cases they're harmless, unless they're dead and are beginning to decay, however, if they are young snails which haven't developed their shells yet, the species will need to be determined before we can determine whether they're going to be a problem.

 

most mantis that come from the Florida area are small and don't pose much of a threat.there are two kinds, a smasher(which has clubs that it uses to smash snails and crabs for food,rarely fish) and spearers( which have spears at the end that it uses for catching fish) they are really cool little critters imo. set up a 10 gal and keep it. i have one and it is my favorite critter!

 

check out this link for tons of info on mantis on rc, i love them too they are really cool to watch and feed! http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=37

 

looks tons better