New live rock

[something_fishy]

Hey, I was reading the bargain hunter last night when I came across someone selling live rock. It was 50% cheaper than at the lfs, this guy runs a small marine livestock shop from his home. He has a nice variety of fish and corals and invertebrates. I bought 5 pounds of l/r. It still had a tiny bit of smell to it, but not a bad smell, more like an ocean smell. It was harvested from the carribean and he had it curing for a couple of weeks. It looks really good with a lot of critters on it and a nice coraline starting growth. I just want to make sure I did the right thing. I have been told that once the l/r is cured you can add it to your tank, well that is what I did, I added it to the existing 5 pounds of l/r in my tank and so far so good. So now I have 10 pounds of l/r in my 15 gallon tank. Since the rock is cured, will I be getting an ammonia spike? Should I have put it in a bit at a time even though it was only 5 pounds?(there really wasn't that much to add).

 

[ReefRaff]

Congrats! if it's got an ocean smell then your there. add another 5 lbs min and you'll be ok. Are you running a nano? or is the 15 gallon just a foot in the door of marine keeping?

 

[Guest]

I stocked my whole tank with putting in a few pounds of LR at a time.. Never saw an ammonia spike...Sounds really cool ...I wish I had someone local that did that.

 

[something_fishy]

Well, nano??

Well, I started out brackish, then went marine and slowly built up the rock, so now my lfs says that I have a well rounded nano reef. Its pretty cool, all sorts of critters growing off the rock. This one thing in particular is a mound of stuff that looks like flesh, its the same consistency of flesh but a tan white colour. all sorts of marble size coraline algae balls too. I think I got a pretty good deal.