Liverocks.com instructions...

[Brad]

Mantis

Yes, I have a small one as well that I haven't seen now in some three weeks. I have yet to try to trap him, though.

 

[Brad]

You dont need established filtration when dealing with QTing live rock. After all the rock itself is the filter.

...that is assuming that the bacteria on the new LR have survived the trip and are ready to do their thing. I think that the LR arrives and is in need of life-support. That is..temporarily incapable of supporting it's own bioload.

I hear what you are saying though. If you have a lot of mature, delicate life in your tank you probably shouldn't take the chance. But the rock will suffer in a brand new qt setup just like a fish would in a brand new setup.

Probably the best solution is to add only small amounts of new LR directly to the main tank at any one time. I realize this still doesn't address hitchhikers, but I'm trying to preserve hitchhikers. I know there are few nasty ones, but there's also a million beneficial ones that you can't even see.

 

[fishman]

Well I took the safe route and it paid off. I got a nice shipment of LR from LR.com yesterday. Ordered 30 lbs and split the order with a friend. I noticed when taking it out of the box and even as I opnd it, it was aweful smelling....but at least I know it was not to go in my tank. I wait until today and checked the ammonia and it was 3.0..So I did a 50% water change and will wait until tomorrow to see what happens. My friend put his right into his tank as he was just setting it up. He has all sorts of little critters running around.
I do have a question....I noticed in the bottom of the box there was a crab about the size of a half dollar that had been squashed. But on the bottom of the rock there was tremendous amts of red stuff that really looked like blood. its not algea but doesnt come off when its in the water per say. You can certainly rub it off and its slimy...what is this?? When I changed my water it was orange color and still stinks bad!! Smelling up the whole end of the house. Just curious. Otherwise nice rock. Just bummed I cant throw it in my tank right now!!

 

[ellisz]

It sucks that you got that kind of spike from an order from LR.com! Most people have little to no spike.

I had a batch from a different place that had some clams that died and it fould the water really bad. I had it sitting in a 18 gal container and it was just too much. I stunk my whole house up. I moved it to an a 30 gal tank I had and ended up cycling the tank with it It still stunk and I had to do water changes every day to keep the smell down but it is still some of the best rock I have ...

 

[dralarms]

Yea, I had a little die off but nothing like that. My ammonia never got over 1.0 if I remember correctly. Started with fresh sw, then after 3 days of daily changes I figured that I may as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone so I started pumping the water out of my 29 gal QT (at the time) right into my display where the rock was, then giving my fish the fresh sw.

 

[mrrrkva]

I think he met fresh SW. I would also QT in a rubbermaid tub until everything came into parameters