Live Rock Question [Archive]

roscozman

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 12:51 PM

We sold a couple of fish last Friday which caused us to remove some of our live rock just to get the little buggers. So we decided to rearrange some of the live rock and make for more swimming room. We now have about three buckets of live rock left over.

On Sunday we covered the buckets to make sure our little boy would not be throwing his toys in there and ruin the live rock. We noticed last night some of the bristle worm floating at the top and the water smelled funny.

Is this "Live" rock still good? It has been sitting in saltwater since Friday.

Gseclipse02

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 12:55 PM

did you have a power head or an air stone to keep movement ?>

roscozman

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 01:12 PM

No, it is just sitting in three separate buckets.

brewercm

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 01:19 PM

You are getting die off on your live rock just as if it were shipped. You will basically be curing it again once you use it. If you put a power head in them to keep some water movement and aeration going you'll be able to save whatever may be left.

seatrueblue

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 01:21 PM

If you don't have water movement it will deprive the living oraganisms in the liverock of oxygen. When my husband and I were replacing our tank (because our 120g middle support beam had a crack in it) we had an airpump supplying oxygen to our refugium. Something happened to the air pump one night. With there barely being any air going into the refugium, we woke up to a rufugium full of dead bristle worms and amphipods.

corkyGramma

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 01:22 PM

You might have caused a little die off. What I would do to keep these rocks from affecting your nitrogen cycle is first scrub em', them leave the rocks in new saltwater with a power head on to keep water circulating. Kinda like you're recuring your rocks but it won't take so long. They'll be ready when the smell goes away. If you can you might want to hang a light over them since its been like a week since they have been in your tank.

sampsonndelila

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 04:51 PM

I will take if off your hands if your not sure about it. LOL.

roscozman

Wed, 11th Feb 2009, 06:19 PM

Thanks for the info.

We just tore down a 75gal fresh water tank and plan on making this a FOWLR tank. I want to keep the rock and use it for the new setup.

We don't have an extra power head, but we do have a submersable Rio 1800. Would this work? Also, what kind of light, PC or would anything do?

Thanks.