Purchasing Live rock and other live items isnt a feasible solution for me. The closest petstore of any size that stocks Saltwater stuff is about 90 miles away. i was toying with the idea of ordering live rock + Dry rock from Live Rock - Buy Live Rock For Sale At $3 Per Pound At Live Rock Ranch but wanted some input. Has anyone here done this, and if yes is it worth doing as opposed to all live rock setup.

Tank 55 gal(currently freshwater)

The other question i have is, does anyone have a better/cheaper site to order live rock from?

You can make it, I just buy it but then again there are a few LFS less than a 10 minute drive from me, after that all you need is a few bits to seed it.

I would consider doing it but I would be scared of not getting my mix correct but it's another option you could look at since 90 mile is a fair drive away.

Driving that far or ordering online will kill some stuff on the rock, but it'll still be fine. The site you have there has live rock for almost half of what i paid for it at my LFS. So to me, that's a good price. Free shipping? wow. same day shipping if you order above 100 lbs? More wow. I see a lot of people doing that and they all seem like it does just as good as any other place. You'll need at least 55 lbs of it for you tank to get a good filtration system.
As for the dry rock, it will just add time to your cycling is all and you wont get some of the life forms thats on live rock. Life forms are good because if you let them reproduce in high enough numbers, then you have free fish food.

the LFS thats closest(90 m away) sells fiji live rock for $6.99 a pound, and dry rock for $4.99 a pound. when i saw their prices, i asked the manager who set their prices and what was he/she smoking. Im probably going to go with all live rock. I called and talked to the owner of that site i posted. He was very friendly, answered my questions and helped me out quite a bit. He said bout the same thing you did. The live/dry combo will get the job done, but it wont have the diversity of life forms. I will prob spend the extra 50 bucks and go all live, just for that reason. He did tell me that 75 lbs would be a very stable number for my 55.

what he did tell me about their stuff shocked me. with Fiji rock, the rock is out of the water for days or even weeks before you get it, so it has to be re cured and allowed to regrow, and even with that, about 80-90 percent of what was originally on there wont come back. With his rock, they do harvests a couple times a week, and what you get shipped to you has never been out of the water longer than 5-10 min. The diversity of life and difference between this and even fully cured fiji rock is amazing from what im told. I am going to order 75 lbs of it next week, so i will let ya know.

he even gave me complete instructions via email, how to setup the 55 gal, and told me if i called and ordered by phone, he'd personally pick out my rock with a 55 gal tank in mind....you dont get that kind of Customer service very often anymore.

An LFS selling fijji for 6.99 a pound is cheap. My LFS sells in at 9.99 a lb. Then again I don't buy LR from LFS. I would check craigslist. I have about 400 lbs of LR over the year and paid maybe 300 bucks total.

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Yea, i saw the place you posted and if i get a new 55g soon, i'm definately buying from them. Its half the cost of what I paid for fiji at my LFS.. Thanks for posting that btw!