Puffer survived; tank stable. LR before more fish?

[bpeitzke]

Some of you may remember our SW-FO tank problems - 40-gal tank, 2" CC base, Fluval 204 filter, protein skimmer, had 7 fish; stable for months, then nitrites started spiking. All fish but the Puffer died. We put him in a small holding tank; did massive water changes with aggressive churning & vacuuming; finally after ~ 2 weeks the NH4, NO2 & pH stabilized; reintroduced Puffer to big home - happy.

It's been stable for 2-3 weeks now. We're feeding less & Puffer is always hungry but looks like he's thriving. We're about ready to get a couple of small damsels to keep him company.

I'm wondering about introducing some cured live rock to supplement the natural bio-filtering. I have some questions about how to go about this.

1. Does cured LR need any preprocessing before adding to tank? If I buy it via Internet, I guess it comes in some kind of sealed bag. OK to just put into tank?

2. Would it be safe to add the LR with Puffer in the tank?

3. Would I need to sweep CC away first, trying to avoid any of it trapped under the LR? (LFS guy warned it could trap pockets of debris in CC under LR.

4. Source for good quality LR at good price?

TIA

Bob Peitzke
Pacific Palisades, CA

 

[steve-s]

1. Does cured LR need any preprocessing before adding to tank? If I buy it via Internet, I guess it comes in some kind of sealed bag. OK to just put into tank?

No, it should be re-cured outside the tank in a seperate bin. This arcticle should help:
Curing Live Rock? I didn't even know it was sick!!

2. Would it be safe to add the LR with Puffer in the tank?

Once it's properly cured it should be no problem. Just remember that tyhe puffer will most likley eat any hitchiking corals/sedentary animals and such on the rock.

3. Would I need to sweep CC away first, trying to avoid any of it trapped under the LR? (LFS guy warned it could trap pockets of debris in CC under LR.

To be honest I would swap out the CC for sand and then get the LR but that's up to you. Depending how high the LR is stacked it should be closer to the bottom of the CC for stability reasons but CC traps detritus no matter what you do so having some under the rock won't be that much of a bother.

4. Source for good quality LR at good price?

Might want to look at some of ourSponsors...

Cheers
Steve