Questions about adding live rock

[clownin around]

I have a 58g tank with 20lbs of live rock and 1.5 " of live sand. My critters are a juvinile pair of clowns, a lawnmower blennie, a banded coral shrimp, a sand sifting sea star, a horse shoe crab, and a couple of astra snails, and small starburst polyp coral ( I know i shouldnt have it yet, but, a friend was tearing down her tank(moving) and gave it to me as it was tankless) My tank is very young just finished with cycling 2 weeks ago. Nitrates 0 Amonia 0 Nitrates 0 . I have a 2.5g quarentine tank. Its small but its better then nothing, I'm guessing.
Ok my question is i am getting in 50 lbs of live rock via overnight UPS on Wens. and another 50lbs of base rock a few days later and I am not sure what to do. I am getting it from reeferrocks.com and the owner said to just stick it in my tank but i am unsure if thats right. Do i take out the residents in the tank? Will they be upset with my Aquascaping efforts? Will the coral make it? Anything i can do to help my animals survive the sandstorm and reduce their stress level? Thanks for the help

 

[two11devan]

The last thing you will want to do is put it right in your tank. Even though the rock may have been cured when you bought it, there will always be some die off during the shipping process. You should cure the rock before its put in the tank. You can cure it in a rubbermade bin or trash can. Once it is cured, then you can put it in the tank. Im sure you can leave your fish in the tank when you put the rocks in, I would think that moving them in and out would be more stressfull than you having your hands in the tank moving things around

 

[cj10488]

IMO and from my experience if the LR is packaged as well as from Liverocks.com there should be a very minimal die-off.. From what I experienced from them as a very small spike that was not really dangerous to fish.. But their packaging Was primo.. If it looks and smells good.. IMO add it to the Tank.. And make sure you monitor the water daily.. AS well as if it starts to spike do a 10% water change.. My fish survived thru it and hopefully the will again as I am adding another 40lbs of LR later today.. But i am avid about testing the waters.. When I add LR to an already cycled tank I monitor sometimes twice a day to make sure and I am prepared to do an immediate water change If needed..

BTW what I do Is probably not the right thing to do but I havent had problems yet.. Well Except I found out that QT'ing fish for 4 weeks before adding to the Display tank is a MUST. Dont learn the hard way like I did..



HTH,
James

 

[Guest]

If you take it out of the box and it smells like it is rotting, and you put it in your tank, you do this at great risk. The rubbermaid tubs come in handy for this....

If it is good smelling, like the ocean, you still put it in your tank at risk...

I have only bought LR from LFS, and placed it directly in the tank and never saw a spike...

I am one to believe though, that when many others say don't put it right in your tank after shipping rock, then it deems some merit...

Do it at your own risk..

Good Luck.

 

[jayfl77]

Do your fish and yourself a favor, go out and buy a large plastic trashcan. Clean with vinegar and water. Fill it with water and add you salt to reach the desired salinity. Place your rock, a powerhead, and a heater in that trash can and let it cycle in there. That way you dont run the risk of killing your tank inhabitants.

 

[Sam]

Let me add my voice to that, I was talking to the folks at Liverocks about this and the fact that their rock is aquacultured and shipped from harvesting. They do not cure it, as there is no down time between them harvesting and them getting it into their holdinbg tanks. There were two issues I discussed with them:

Getting rid of unwanted hitchhikers - Mantis shrimp, Bristle worms
Their opinion on how cured the rocks will be when I get it.

The answers are that getting rid of hitchhikers is something the buyer will have to deal with as again, they do not cure it or get rid of them. From some of the posts I have read here, their rock does routinely include mantis shrimp.
Secondly, he acknowledged that there will be some die-off and that the rock should be re-cured before placing in a tank with livestock. In my case I will be using it to cycle a new tank, and this would be perfect for it, enough to give me the ammonia spike I need.

Bottom line, decide how much you want to risk a potential for problems with your livestock (including the Mantis) versus, curing it first and eliminating this worry. HTH 8)

 

[clownin around]

Thanks for all the advise. And to think, I mentioned to the guy that I could put it in a tub ( i already have one of those) and he said it would do more damage to i the rock if i did it that way. He says he does cure it in a large 1500g tank which I belive is good but would hardly get rid of any undesirable critters that might be living in it.
Do i go out and get a areator for the tub? or just sit it in the tub of SW ? How long do i leave it in the tub? Is there a way to get the critters to come out or will this just happen ?
sorry so many questions
thank you so much

 

[Sam]

Questions are good. I am sure I speak for all on the board when I say that we are prepared to offer opinions and advice to everyone asking a question here, rather than offering condolences because you did not. to your question, if you do a search on curing LR on this board, there is a bunch of threads on the topic. Latest advice seems to be to use carbonated water instead of plain water, adjust the SG and temp and dunk the LR into the mix. Word is that the mantis shoot out of there faster than a three-toes sloth with a lion after him

You may want to be sure that you collect and put back any other desirable hitch hikers. I will be ordering my LR soon and this is the procedure I plan to follow.

Disregard what the guy said, you need to cure it because of the die off from the transport time from them to you. No matter how well they cure it on site, as soon as they box it and ship it, there will be dieoff. Fact!

So basically get a large enough tub that will cover the rocks (preferrably something flat). If you have it set the rock on a shelf to create a space between the rock and the bottom of the container, and then once you have enough water made up, dunk away and wait for the fireworks. I have read that putting the rock in hyposaline water does not always work, and may actually kill some beneficial organisms too. So that is the plan of attack. Let me know how you make out. 8)