Newb with live rock

[LeonPhelps]

Hi guys, newbie here just trying to get things going for the first time. I bought a 24g nano cube and im pretty sure I followed instructions pretty good until today when I added the Live Rock. When I went to the local fish store to buy the rock today, I asked them about how I should go about putting it in my tank to cure. The guy working there told me that I should rinse and scrub it before putting it into the tank. So I washed it and scrubbed it using fresh water (not saltwater) :anxious they didnt tell me to use salt water and I guess I should have done some more reading before going ahead of myself. I all lost now, do I need to start over ?

 

[KoNP]

Uh, no... a simple freshwater scrub won't ruin the live rock. One of the reasons it's used is because of all the microscopic holes and cavities in it - not only does it increase the surface area to ridiculous levels (thus providing better mechanical filtration and a bed for nitrifying bacteria) but it provides a deep refuge for those bacteria to survive some well-nigh intolerable levels.

I just scrubbed all the pieces of LR in my tank under cold running tap water - thanks to a runaway hair algae problem and a case of brown jelly on a frogspawn frag I got, things were about to go very nasty for my tank. The rock came up beautifully and the tank inhabitants that weren't affected by the brown jelly are fine.

So go ahead and pop the rock in the tank, you'll find that in a few days things are proceeding nicely.

 

[TimSchmidt]

I learned the hard way to QT everything, even my rocks. I failed to dip a new rock (20+) pounds and discovered I had a mantis shrimp stowaway ( I love him! But he made a buffet out of my cleaning crew and nabbed a fish or two) as well as somehow introducing "velvet disease" (aka oodinium). I will dip EVERYTHING before going into my tank.

Now I just need to figure out how to dip sand... :shock: :lol: :razz: