Live Reef Rubble

Description

This material is ideal for seeding the microbial community in a new aquarium. For  adjusting the community in established aquariums we recommend Live Reef Sand. 

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This is the real thing – little pieces of Live Rock, shipped in water from the ocean to your tank. Just like the Live Rock from the good old days … except in much smaller pieces. Rubble, instead of rocks. But don’t let the size fool you — it’s the same material we’ve previously used to demonstrate the benefits of live rock for establishing a new tank.

PLEASE NOTE – we offer three different varieties of Live Reef Rubble. Make sure to select the kind you want when ordering.

• Aquacultured: This is our newest product, a completely aquacultured version of Live Reef Rubble. We start with clean, dry natural coral rubble shipped to us dry from the exporters. We sterilize this material then inoculate it with known microbial communities from clean, tested natural sources. Then we culture it for a full year in fish-free systems to develop a mature community. This material has very little Coralline Algae, but the microbial community is incredibly diverse, every bit as good as natural sources. See this example.
• Indo-Pacific: This material is entirely composed of old coral skeletons, with coralline algae, sponges, and occasionally zoanthids or worms. The pieces are relatively large. Its sourced from regions near reefs in the Indo-Pacific.  See this example.
• Gulf of Mexico: This material collected from a deepwater site in the Gulf includes both shells and pieces of coral skeletons; it’s especially rich in Coralline Algae with interesting branching varieties. See this example.

We test each batch using DNA sequencing so you know exactly what you’re adding to your tank. This offers an unprecedented chance to establish natural levels of biodiversity in a new reef tank, without the potential risks of pests and parasites associated with untested Live Rock from unknown sources.

This is a unique product with several important benefits for the saltwater aquarium:

• Shipped in seawater from the reef to your tank, to preserve the living communities in the rocks
• Contains complete nitrifying communities with both ammonia-oxidizing and nitrite-oxidizing microbes
• Contains hundreds of different types of microbes from the major families found in mature reef tanks
• Maintained in fish-free tanks to minimize exposure to fish pathogens
• Tested by DNA sequencing to confirm it’s free of parasites and pathogens
• Includes a certificate of analysis so you know exactly which microbes you’re adding to your tank

What Live Reef Rubble is NOT: This material is NOT intended for aquascaping. Each batch contains multiple small pieces of rubble (1-3″ in length at most) that are intended to seed your reef. You don’t buy it for the rock itself — you buy it for the diverse communities of microbes (Bacteria & Archaea), invertebrates, and coralline algae growing in and on the rocks.

Live Reef Rubble is sold in 200 g (7 oz) portions. This portion is appropriate to seed an aquarium up to 40 gallons, and is expected to establish a diverse and balanced microbial community within two weeks. Larger tanks will require either multiple portions (or a longer time) to achieve similar communities.

Live Reef Rubble is full of living things, so we ship it like live corals: in insulated shipping boxes with heat or cold packs. You can choose overnight or 2-day shipping during checkout.

This is a natural product so the product you receive will look similar, but not identical to, the images shown. Because of the nature of this material we cannot accept returns for any reason, and all sales are final.