lots of rock questions

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scottayy

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Mar 25, 2011
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Indiana
Do you guys have your rocks fixated together or just piled up? I'm thinking I should fixate mine somehow, but I don't want to mess up the bacteria. How can I achieve this?

Also, if I buy some real live rock (not base rock made live), will this cause a mini cycle? How do I go about adding this to my tank? Is there a procedure or do I just drop it straight in?

Also, what to do if I encounter unwanted creatures?

What is some good live rock to order online.. good bang for buck?

Thanks!
 
Currently I just have mine piled together. I may opt to epoxy them together. Unfortunately if i do this, I won't be able to remove the rocks for cleaning and/or removing fish if needed. Another idea is to drill into your rocks and insert carbon rods into them so that they become more stable. Since no glue is used, you can remove the rods and then remove the rocks as you see fit down the line.

As to adding additional live rock to an established tank; there may or may not be any die off to cause a mini cycle. If possible, I'd suggest to buy your LR from an LFS and take it home with some salt water in a bucket\container. This will reduce die off to a minimum. If you decide to buy LR online you will need to be careful. Die off will most certainly occur and how much will depend how long it takes to ship to your house. You can do overnight/2day shipping but you'll be paying up the wazoo for that since LR is pretty heavy.
 
I have a 55 gal also and I've been purchasing live rock a little at a time from my LFS. No problems as long as the rock has been in their tank a few weeks. I also bring a bucket and they put some water in there for me so nothing dies on the way home.

On one rock I bought, a few days later an apastia anenome (sp?) came out. I bought the stuff to kill it and it was really easy to do. I also bought a peppermint shrimp to get any new ones that may show up. I heard there is really nothing you can do to prevent getting bad stuff in rocks, as there's no way to know what's in there.

I was also wondering about the stability of rock piles - is it common to have a fish or snail cause them to topple? I have mostly small rocks piled up, not sure if this is more or less risky.
 
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