Live Rock Questions

[ercfish]

A couple of quick and hopefully easy questions. First off, I just added some live rock to my tank and was wondering if anything could possibly have survived the trip. I ordered it online and it arrived with only wet newspaper covering it. I figure any bristleworms or mantis shrimp could not survive without water? Am I correct? Second, I have 80 lbs of rock for a 45 gallon tank, I dont need any other sort of filtration (I do have a Bak Pak 2 skimmer) ? I currently have an emperor 400 that I was using to clear up tank a little faster. Will it hurt leaving this on? Should i take the carbon filter out? TIA

 

[kidafius]

80 lbs. of LR and that bak pak should be all you need. Just make sure you have plenty of current. A couple of Maxi-jet 1200 PH's should do perfectly. (about $50 total with shipping from www.drsfostersmith.com)

The LR should be good. The wet newspaper is sufficient in keeping the good stuff alive. You WILL have a lot of die off for the surface creatures/plants/etc. But the majority of the good stuff lives in the rock or burrows DEEP into it during curing, so you should still get goood stuff.

I would lose the emporer, unless you just want to use it for carbon, which I would only run periodically, and for short periods of time. But I would use a carbon bag inside it, not just the carbon coated fiber filter. HTH. Good luck

 

[Sam]

Quick question on the LR. Did you buy cured or uncured LR? If uncured, I would hope you are not adding to a tank with livestock as you will get a big ammonia spike. If cured, I would still be very careful if you have livestock in there and may be better to re-cure it before you add it to your tank. 8)

 

[kidafius]

Regardless of how you bought it, if it will experience die off on the shipping route, and will still have to cure a bit.

 

[ercfish]

I bought the rock 36 lbs uncured and 45 lbs cured. Tank was just setup, so I am cycling with the LR. For the uncured rock, was I supposed to do something with it before placing it in the tank? (like scrub it, dip it,etc) I got 3 PH s in the tank 2 aquaclear 402's and an aquaclear 301, this should be sufficient to keep water flowing in tank.

 

[Sam]

Well if you want to get rid of unwanted critters (yes, the manthis shrimp and bristleworms usually survive the trip), you will probably want to use one of a few different methods mentioned here (do search for curing LR) to accomplish this. Secondly the recommendation is to cure the LR outside of the showtank (and outside of your living room) as it will stink during this process (again, lots of information here on that topic). Figure on a few weeks for the uncured LR to fully cure and the smell to dissipate. Once it is cycled, then it should be okay to put in the tank, assuming you got rid of the unwanted critters. Good Luck 8)