what live rock has the best shape?
 

I am looking for live rock that would be good for making caves and tunnels. What kind of live rock would be best for that?

come on guys... I need some help. I'm thinking of ordering marshall Island live rock. I know it's porus but how does it look shape wise???

I like Fiji, Tonga, and Marshall Island liverock.

Marshall Island all the way! I have it and have never made a better choice for my tank. Get it, you will love it!

Make it yoursely if you want something with a great shape. You can't get really nice looking store bought rock because the really nice pieces break in transit. You could not buy this 3' long rock.
It is $2.00 worth of PVC and cement. I guess if you really want to buy something Tonga rock comes close.
Have a great day.
Paul
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--I was searching for the same thing --- the best rock I've seen for caves and stuff is reeferrock.com hope I spelled it right. its all holey and looks good put together at first I was just going to buy a box of reef bones and figure it out dry, but then I stumbled on that site. prices arent terrible, but I cant afford to mess with it right now --30 lbs for $60 I think? depending on base or premium.
You can also search on here for ceramic back walls and pillars made from a germany --they can customize anything you like.

just a couple ideas....

me, right now I have a couple realsitic resin live rock caves from aquariumbeauty.com and putting brazil, tonga, some fiji live rock around it --once everything settles--you cant tell what is fake.

take a look at some hatian, it's really unigue.

as far as live rock choices -- Haitian rock is ancient encrusted lettuce coral heads and marshall island pics seem to have alot of holes.

brazillian rock is still my favorite I ve ordered so far though and fiji was my least favorite.

You can also make your own live rock [url]http://www.garf.org[/url]

That way, you can make the shapes yourself.

Check it out!: [url]http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=480540&perpage=25&pagenumber=5[/url]

I recently ordered some Indonesian from reefscience.com...Chad was great, specified that I like unique shapes for tunnels and caves, as well as any hitchhikers...Did he ever come through, mushrooms, and zoos and beautifully shaped rock..Also the haitian makes very nice caves as well..it just doesn't seem to have all the colors of the indonesian..

I love the shape and color of Marshall Island. Ordered 80 lbs of it when Marine Center had the "no color but great shape" MI for $1.99 lb. I wish I had gotten enough to get rid of all the other rock and could do the whole tank in it!!! Awsome shape and it colored up in just a couple of months.

I cane across some aquacultured fiji and picked up different shapes like an X and an O there were many ready made cave rocks in that pile they were pretty cool but it took a pretty big rock to make a nice sized cave and at 6.00$ a Lb !!

bu I actually have a 34lb chunk of tonga that is sphere shaped and hollow in the middle with 4 "cave entrances" in to the middle

really cool.

the best thing you can do is get a list of all LFS in a 50 mile radius and go shopping everyweekend for a month
I spent like 3 hours in each store digging through every piece of rock they had.

and try to visit each store at least 3 times in that month.

IMO its the best thing to do if your just setting yo your tank
You'd hate to look at ugly rock forever in your nice tank

Google "buna branch" or check it out at reefermadness.us. It's perfect for what you want. I purchased 150lbs from my LFS and it is absolutely beautiful. It's dead coral skeletons -- and still looks like it. The upside is that there are tons of nooks and crannies for critters and surface area for bacteria. The downside is that, if it isn't pre-cured, you'll get tons of die off. All of those nooks and crannies are packed with the equivalent of hamburger and it takes a while to die off and cure. Mine also lost much of its initial color. However, now it's cured and coloring up with coralline. I couldn't be happier with this rock. I haven't even added a fish yet to my tank and people are amazed looking at this live rock.

Curt

IMO you need to look for what will fit your aquascape and sometimes a combo will be needed. You can get Marshall with lots of holes combined with some fidji (rounded and heavy) wich is good and strong for the lower portions, Tonga Plates are excellent for building cave roofs and Tonga branches are good for top arrangments.
You also need to consider when making the arrangment that although clifs, caves, laggons and branching tops looks stunning they leave little flat areas for coral locations but you can always fit the corals on the vertical walls and they will grow toward the top suplementing the araangment. In this case less corals are more and the tank will look more open, cleaner, and the critters will develop better than if you try to crowd it up. Keep in mind that frags do not stay frags forever and for the most outstanding and natural look you may want to avoid chopping them too often.