Where to find Hawaiian black lava rock for Opae Ula?

[ernopena]

Hey,

I'm putting together a new larger tank for some Opae Ula I rescued from 3 of those ecospheres. I'm trying to find some Hawaiian high-velocity ejectile pumice, same as from FukuBonsai, but can't find any here in LA. The red-brown stuff you find in Home Depot and Lowe's is all California desert lava rock with different minerals and a different texture.

Does anyone know of a place online or in Los Angeles to find this kind of lava rock? Any help appreciated...

[Mustafa]

Why do you even want lava rock? The shrimp do fine without it, i.e it's not necessary. Mine are constantly breeding with just normal gravel as their substrate. Plus, it's against the rules to ask for things to buy and post commercial links, so you won't be getting any replies to your purchase inquiry.

Having said that, you can find lava rock in any hardware store usually. They carry black or red wither for landscaping (usually red) or even for barbecueing (blackish, grey).

[LiquidBee]

Ernopena:

If you ever find any let me know, I would like to iminate their natural habitat for my shrimps also.

It's true what Mustafa said, don't think the shrimps really need it, as I subsituted it with coral rocks from Petco, and mine shrimps seem to be just fine...reproducing like crazy thou

Looking to get a bigger tank (55Gallon ?) for them as they're easy to take care of and very interesting to watch....

I'm wondering if anyone knows how many of these little shrimps can fit into a 20Gallon Tank......cuz I have around 200+ in my tank and I kinda feel that there isn't enough of algea for them all, since I don't have to clean the front of my tank any more and I started to see white patches of space on my coral rock (which was all green before)...I also started to feed them Spinuala Flakes (sorry can't spell) about 2-3 times a week ...and they seem to go crazy and even fight over the food...

[badflash]

Not being an expert on these at all, but these are tiny shrimp. In a 20 gallon tank I don't think 200 is much of a load at all. These guys are used to really horrible conditions, so if you keep the water quality good and keep them fed, it should be no problem.

I have 100+ cherry shrimp in a 10 gallon tank (my culls) with a lot of java moss and do regular water changes. They are active and healthy and reproducing. If you scale your shrimp to cherries you'd likely go over 1000 in a 20. In my experience there is a trigger that shuts down breeding when there gets to be too many.

[ernopena]

So, I've been looking for lava rock for a while now, and everything I've found is the red, high clay content lava rock from mainland North American sources. I have not yet found Hawaiian black lava rock yet.

I bought a bag of lava rocks for barbecue grills from Lowe's, and it was all red lava rock that produced red, clayish-cloudy water when dunked in a bucket of water. I've washed out and rinsed the rocks four times already and they still produce cloudy water. Needless to say, I'm not using them.

Someone at work suggested I go to a Japanese bonsai nursery to find the Hawaiian rock, but the nurseries I've found all close too early. If anyone has a chance to visit a nearby Japanese nursery, please report if you find large pieces of Hawaiian black lava rock for sale...

I too am really interested in trying to recreate a natural environment for my opae ula. The red lava rock that's easily procured just doesn't look right to me...

[badflash]

Check with your local rock shop and ask for pumice. You can often find it at home depot as a landscaping rock. It needs to be soaked for a long time or weighted to sink as it has lots of air bubbles and floats.

a-a is sacred to the followers of the ancient hawian religions, so getting natural rock is difficult.

Basalt is exactly the same stuff without the bubbles as is obsiidian. Basalt is proobably the best choice. It is often called trap rock.