LFS Gave me bad advice - Help Please

[CBRGuy]

Ok.. I bought 50# of LR. He told me it would be FIJI, but when I got there it was Tonga Branch.. It was not what I was looking for, but I still bought it. Here is my problem; the guy told me not to wash the rock off, it had a ton of die off, but it didn't smell too bad. Well when I put the rock in my tank my Amonia level went to 7.5 ppm and my nitrites and nitrates were off of the chart. well after after 3 weeks my amonia droped but my nitrites and nitrates were still sky high. I took one of the pieces of live rock out of my tank and it smelled worse then anything I have ever smelled in my life. So I took all of the rocks out of my tank and scrubed them in a sw bucket.

Do you think the high amonia killed what ever was on the rock?
is it ok that I took the rock out of my tank and cleaned it?


thanks for any help.

 

[reefrunner69]

I think quite a bit of life (what little there was to begin with) is probably gone. It's not such a huge loss, as the fact that this stuff comes from the South Pacific pretty much insures that there won't be much life left on it when it get's to the states.

Were you doing water changes during your curing period? I think scrubbing it was the right idea, bvut I would have recommended lots of water changes as well.

 

[CBRGuy]

I only changed the water once. The LFS told me not to change it, but the nitrites were just too high. I am going to perform more water changes now.. Thank for the help