Dead Live Rock...bringing it back

[SaltWaterNewb]

I have about 75 pounds of LR that I had in my 65 gallon SW tank several years ago but after the tank failed the rock was dried out and is now stored in a Rubbermaid Tote. I am thinking about giving a SW tank another try in the form of a nano tank and would like to re-use the old LR. How should I go about bringing my rock back from the dead? How long would it take before it would be considered LR again and ok to add sea life? I am thinking about something in the way of a 20 gallon tank if I do decide to do this. Thanks for the help.

 

[SaltWaterNewb]

I was thinking and thought I would throw this idea out there to see if this would be an acceptable way to get my rock back to life. I would boil the rock and rinse it super good to make sure that it is clean clean clean. Then I would add live sand to the tote and place the rock in the tote with the sand. Add water to cover (SW of course) and basically cycle the tote using the shrimp method. I would maintain the temp., water changes, and circulation the same as if the tote was an actual tank. I would just continue to use the shrimp method the entire time during this process. I would think this would build sufficient bacteria to bring the rock back to life. Of course this would not do anything to make the rock look nice, I guess that would just come with time. If this sounds ok, I have a question about lighting. Would it be needed or could I do this in darkness? Just the heater and power heads and keep a lid on the tote? Also, how long would you think this process would take? I am in no hurry and would have no problem doing this for a month or more if needed.

 

[Ritsuko N]

Ah....dont boil the rock my friend. Not really neccessary.

Using dead rock in your tank again is easy to do. In fact almost all tanks that I start use "sund dried" rock that used to be live.

I would suggest soaking it in some RO water for several days with a lot of water flow from a power head. Then using the same power head with a hose attached to it spray it off really well getting any dust accumulation off it. After several days of this and its nice and cleaned off give it a final rinse and set it in your tank.

If you have some live sand it will be colonized by bateria rather quickly. Add a couple of pieces of Live Rock from the LFS and it will soon have 'pods, worms and even coralline algae growing on it with in a couple of months.

I currently have a small 10 galllon project tank that I am using right now that had all sun dried rock in it. The only live rock it had was a baseball sized piece of "kelp on a rock". and a couple of coral frags mounted on rock rubble. I also added a cup sized chunk of Chaeto algae to the tank. I have tons of bugs in my tank and worms too, there are now coralline algae spots appearing on the rock and glass although they are small but yet its only been about 6 weeks. No live sand was used in this instance either.

Use your old clean rock with some live rock and live sand and you wont know the difference 6 months from now.

 

[SaltWaterNewb]

Thanks for the advice. I was going to boil just to be safe but I figure the soak will be long enough at this point. I won't be setting this up for some time but will probably do something similar to what I described above so the rock will be alive as soon as it hits the tank. Of course there won't be any algea without lights but I assume for just the bacteria lights are not needed. Would this be correct? Once the tank is set up I can seed the algea from a piece or two of rock that I get from elsewhere.

 

[Ritsuko N]

Yes thats correct the Bacteria thats contianed in live rock will quickly colonize the rock and does not require light. How ever when you seed the tank with some "real" live rock from the LFS you will want to have some light on the tank. The light required is minimal, you dont have to blast it. Just actinics will work very well actually.

Using mainly dry rock and seeding it with some small pieces of live rock works very well if you have more time and patience than money and dont have a huge desire for near instant gratification. Its a slow process but then again as I always say...rarely do good things happen fast in SW tanks :cool1: .