Where to find the best live rock in metro DC

[MMfish]

Any suggestions on where to find the best live rock in our area? Aquarium 1 in Rockville is my closest store and they generally have brown, minimal life form rock. Thank you for considering this question

[Mr.Chalice]

You can try tropical lagoon, there on Georgia ave

[426HEMI]

I got my Fiji from house of tropically in glen burnie. Had bristle worms, micro brittle stars, stoma snails, pods, one hitchhiker hermit, macro algae.

[davelin315]

I would suggest joining so that you can see the sale forums. You'll find some excellent deals on "used" live rock. I would also check out some of our sponsors for what they've got in stock. Dr. Mac also stocks some excellent rock.

[MMfish]

Curious how in a metro area there isn't any consistent source of top shelf live rock. More money in coral pound for pound, no doubt

[zygote2k]

Curious how in a metro area there isn't any consistent source of top shelf live rock. More money in coral pound for pound, no doubt

If you go to Marine Scene, they have plenty of nice rock on hand and can order nicer stuff.

[AOberheim]

+1 to marine scene.

another not local in the beltway but liverocknreef.com has decent prices on ridiculous stuff.

[OldReefer]

+1 on Dr Mac Rock. Very open, nice flat shapes and lots of life, That is always where I go when putting a new tank together.

[Steve175]

I have used a fair bit of Dr. Mac Rock over the years as well: very high quality stuff every time.

[treesprite]

I am now of the thought that I do not want hitch hikers of any kind of liverock. All that is important for the tank is that it has the bacteria in it; if I want the extra stuff, I'll just get it some other way from either someone else's tank or a vendor. Hitch hikers are often of the pest sort and I don't want them.

 

I bought a large piece of rock ($30 large) from Aquarium One not long ago that was completely cycled and had no hitch hikers to worry about. I still let it cook a while, but the entire time nitrate, ammonia, and nitrite stayed at undetectable. I was extremely happy with the purchase. My previous liverock purchase from a shop was horrible - the rock smelled like death even after a month by itself and I ended up not being able to put it in the structure because it was like that, meaning I wasted my money.