Preventing nuisance inverts on LR??

[swishyfishies]

How can I ensure there are no nuisance inverts to infest my LR when I get it? I will most likely order my LR online. I plan on curing my LR myself in my main tank to start off. Ofcourse the tank will be bare bottom in this process. Is it good to dose the tank with a treatment that would kill all of these during the curing process or would it kill any growth on my LR too?

I plan on getting a magnifying glass to help me search for flatworms & a small flash light to look for bristleworms at night. I'll ofcourse be on the lookout for mantis shrimp, pistol shrimp, elephant ear polyps & aiptasia as they grow.

And if none of these show up does that mean I'll never have an outbreak of them? If I ever decide to try corals that flatworms could be on can't I just dose them with flatworm exit before the piece is added to my main tank?

What measures do I need to take?

 

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

I found this that it might help you.

Helpful Tips for Controlling Unwanted Pests:

Before (or after) curing your newly arrived live rock, you can submerse the new rock into a bucket filled with saltwater with a specific gravity of 1.035 to 1.040 for one minute. Any invertebrates including: mantis shrimp, bristle worms, and crabs, will quickly evacuate from the rock into the bucket of water. Bristle worms still attached to the rock can be removed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers or tweezers. After removing the live rock from the bucket, you can then sort through the invertebrates in the bucket that you will want to add to your system, and discard all of the unwanted pests.

 

[swishyfishies]

really I'll have to keep that in mind.

 

[alrmc4]

i got this very helpful info from a member when i first asked...LR can come with mantis shrimp and some hitchhiker crabs, but there are ways to prevent them from entering your tank. One of our Advisors posted about a method where you mix about 5 gallons of new SW (mixed at the proper SG, and temp) to rinse the new rock in. The key is rather than RO water or tap water, you use carbonated soda water to mix the salt. The carbonation drives the pests crazy and they abandon their hols in the rock in an effort to be clear of the fizzing. Be prepared though, it gets to the good ones as well as the bad ones. After dunking in the carbonated seawater, rinse in regulae Sw and put it in the tank or curing vessel.

 

[reefrunner69]

i got this very helpful info from a member when i first asked...LR can come with mantis shrimp and some hitchhiker crabs, but there are ways to prevent them from entering your tank. One of our Advisors posted about a method where you mix about 5 gallons of new SW (mixed at the proper SG, and temp) to rinse the new rock in. The key is rather than RO water or tap water, you use carbonated soda water to mix the salt. The carbonation drives the pests crazy and they abandon their hols in the rock in an effort to be clear of the fizzing. Be prepared though, it gets to the good ones as well as the bad ones. After dunking in the carbonated seawater, rinse in regulae Sw and put it in the tank or curing vessel.

This is the method I would use, the hypersalinity method is hit or miss.

 

[Hara]

I would think you would want to keep the bristleworms...

I have had 4 shipments of liverock and never had anything bad show up except for 2 sprouts of aiptasia that boiling water took care of. I imagine it depends on where and how fresh your live rock is as well..