LR comes tommorrow!!

[fireman26m]

My LR comes tomm.
My question is I remeber seeing something about doing some kind of dip with the rock to get critters out of it. I want to try and separate out the "bad" (mantis shrimp, evil crabs) things before they even get to the tank but want to be able to keep the good ones. Is this possible? It's Keys Rock from LR.com.

TIA

Fireman

 

[CBRGuy]

Hey I just got my rock today and it did have a ton of crabs, but I left them in there. I have been reading that you can to a fw dip or a high SG dip to get the critters to run out. BTW you will be amazed by there rock it's great.. I thought with the 80+ weather that there would be a ton of dieoff but there wasn't.. It had no bad odor

 

[bckane]

My LR comes tomm.
My question is I remeber seeing something about doing some kind of dip with the rock to get critters out of it. I want to try and separate out the "bad" (mantis shrimp, evil crabs) things before they even get to the tank but want to be able to keep the good ones. Is this possible? It's Keys Rock from LR.com.

TIA

Fireman

I received my LR from liverocks.com last week. What I did was dip the rock in high SG for about 3-4 minutes....seen many crabs and shrimp jump out. But you will still have a few critters left in the rocks. Im still seeing new gritters every day in my tank coming out at night. I found 3 crabs in my tank I didnt want to put any crabs in...But I cant seem to catch them, Ive had a crab trap set up for 3 days now...but the crabs seem to be pretty smart...........Good luck with the new tank, and Yes you will love the live rock

 

[luckycat]

I think the other replies covered this - I also received lr from liverocks.com a couple of weeks ago. The night before the rock arrived I prepared a 5 g tank of salt water with a bit more salt than normal. Dipped the rock in there for about 2-4 min each, giving a chance for the critters to come out..most did but definately not all. There are so many holes in the rock some just I think duck-n-cover. You'll see them sneak out later on, usually at night.

I found tons of life in the rock, starfish (I think brittle), worms, shrimp (in one case mantis, and consensus seems to be you don't want them).

The big question I had was do you have to acclimate at all...dipping the lr in a bucket of water, then throwing these inverts into the tank isn't really a slow and steady acclimation...however I have to say I don't think anything died due to that...I still see the 3 starfish at night (they hang out in holes during the day), and I've seen at least I think 2 little crabs that made it through. Could have perhaps been more life died that I don't know about.

Good luck!

 

[fireman26m]

Any ideas on around what SG I should make the dip?

 

[SpeckledGrouper]

Over the last month or so I have bought about 125 lbs of LR from various local places, I have been picking and choosing because of shapes I was after and have encountered pricing from$ 4.99 to $ 2.50 a pound, now this is all Haitian etc, no Fijii or Tonga at that price, but nevertheless nice pieces, I am very happy so far. All was cured, no problem there either. One store I got some "real live" rock from suggested to dip in Salt Water for 60 seconds, all he said is to make it "high", e.g. have that dial stand straight up.... I did and got some bristle worms out but I feel I could have gotten more out, had I soaked it longer.

 

[Brad]

real long time

If you really want EVERYTHING out..soak it in tap water! (I'm kidding...don't anyone take that seriously) Do that and you have dead rock.

My point is that you can't have it both ways. Any kind of dip that causes enough duress to make the big critters jump off can't be any good for the little critters or stuff you can't even see. Most of the stuff on the rock you want to keep as healthy as possible and high salinity dipping can't be good for it.

Personally, I take the hitchhikers and figure out how to live with them or get them out later rather than risk harming anything on that rock that I can't see...but that is me. I'm looking for an ecosystem, not a showpiece.

If you dip..you won't get them all. If you dip long and hard enough, you might get them all, but you probably pay a price in other lost life.

 

[fireman26m]

Point well taken Brad....I think I'll just take my chances with whatever lives on the rock stays on the rock, no dip....unless I can catch it later in the tank. I really want as a diverse tank as possible.
Thanks everyone!

 

[ellisz]

Before I got my first rock, I had read about doing freshwater dips, high salinity and even using soda water in place of ro water.

If you are cycling your tank and you want everything off, do a freshwater dip. Some rock is pretty fresh so it might not even cause a cycle on it own.

I actually dipped my rock in freshwater after it had been in my tank about 6 months when I moved the tank. The mantis shrimp I had and the nuisance crabs needed to go. I got every crab and the mantis off with a FW dip of about 1-2 minutes. This will kill some stuff but it is recovering fine. If the tank is cycling, stuff will die too.

BTW, all the crabs and such came from my last batch of rock that I just placed in the tank. If your tank is already cycled and you have live stock, placing rock that is shipped is always a risk. You could dip it and then cure the rock to be safe.

Depends on what you want in your tank. Nuisance crabs grow very fast IMO.

 

[fireman26m]

Tank is still cycling and no livestock yet. Hopefully the rock will help speed along the cycle. It's got that deserted house look to it

 

[ellisz]

That part sucks but you have to wait it out. Getting LR in there helps though. It gives you something to look at.

 

[fireman26m]

The LR got here and looks great. 24hrs in the tank and I only see 3 crabs....grrr. Lots of other critters...3 brittle stars, 3 snails (unk. type), various worms, 2 diff things I HOPE are feather dusters or anemones (not Aiptasia I hope). I'll get pics if I can....they are very, very small though, about the size of a toothpick.

 

[quarryshark]

Cool, enjoy!!

 

[Nitrate]

I posted this in another thread, but reposted here since the topic was being covered.

How many pounds total should I have in a 20 gal. 20 lbs doesnt look like much, and is there any reason I wouldnt be able to mix different LR, such as Fiji and Keys? How long after cycle is complete should I wait to add more LR?

Lastly, I have about 10 lbs in my 150 that I bought as an experiment about a year and a half ago (failed experiment because of puffer and trigger). It still has lots of coraline, sponges, and dusters on it, but the tank was treated with cupramine about 6 months ago. Could I do tons of damage to my new LR by moving the old in with it?

 

[bckane]

They say 1 to 1-1/2 pounds per gal. I have a 29 gal tank and just put #40 lbs of live rock and it filled up the tank:
Here take a look
http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/c/bckane/LR/

 

[quarryshark]

To address you other question. I have fiji and carib. rock in mine. No problem with mixing in fact, I think it looks pretty cool!
Also it your old rock was exposed to copper, I wouldn't use it. It may have traces if copper still in it. IMO, not worth the chance over 10 lbs.

 

[Ayesha97]

Tank is still cycling and no livestock yet. Hopefully the rock will help speed along the cycle. It's got that deserted house look to it

That was prolly the hardest part- I had to tape a picture of a fish to the front to distract me.

 

[XXFirefighter]

Good luck, I did mine with a high SG and cooler water. I got out 5 mantis, you do not want these in the tank, they will I repeat WILL kill your fish ! I am down now, 1 fire goby, 2 Chromis, and 2 peppermint Shrimp ! I missed one and got 5 with the dips ! I used a 5 gallon bucket and caught the starfish that tried to bail and put them in the good water I had set up. As for the other crabs, they were eating the color off my rock so after 2 weeks I had to do a redip to get them, I got 30 of them in total. No more cool small crabs... worth it though, my rock looks GREAT now !

 

[fireman26m]

Well my LFS wants the 3 crabs....maybe they'll give me some store credit. They give me free stuff all the time anyways!

 

[Nitrate]

I have a trigger in my FO tank thats gonna get fresh crab and shrimp for supper as soon as the little buggers start showing up.