well im new here , i have had fish only tank for quite sometime , was thinkng about live rock and corals. i looked over some messeges and saw some people actually bioling , or soaking the natural rocks found at the beach, would that not kill the speacial allgea and coral life on the rock??, could someone be kind enough to give me a little insight?
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boil, bleach , soak in vinigar???????what?
- Thread starter newguyinreef
- Start date
For a reef system I can't imagine a scenario where you would boil or boil or bleach any rock. It's called live rock for a reason. To transport it the best way would be to keep it completly covered in salt water, lacking that you can wrap it wet newspaper. You'll come across the term "cured" rock which means that the rock was transported semi wet and then allowed to sit in a tank while the stuff that was killed is allowed to decompose in their tank instead of yours.
randy holmes-farley
Advanced Reefer
- Location
- Arlington, MA
People who boil and bleach rocks are looking for attractive, DEAD rock to use in their tanks. In a few months they will look no different than the ones bought "live". Of course, they supply nothing new to the tank, but that isn't always the need.
I wouldn't take rock from temperate or cold waters and add it to a reef tank. In that case I would boil it or one of those others. I would also boil "dead" rocks from tropical areas to rid them of organic material trapped inside. I also suggest you do the same with "dead" rock from the LFS.
Why not spend the $2.50 per lb and get some REAL live rock from Fiji?
You'll get the natural biological filter of the liverock, plus, you will get the multitude of life and diversity "inoculation" of adding a "piece of the reef" to your tank.
HTH
James Wiseman
You'll get the natural biological filter of the liverock, plus, you will get the multitude of life and diversity "inoculation" of adding a "piece of the reef" to your tank.
HTH
James Wiseman
Greg Hiller
Just a bum in Boston
- Location
- Wakefield, MA
>Why not spend the $2.50 per lb and get some REAL live rock from Fiji?<
Well...you might also get (and I've gotten all of the following from live rock) Aiptasia, Valonia, Bryopsis, red flat worms, Sargassum, red filimentous algae that nothing will eat, and red bulbous algae that nothing will eat. Don't get me wrong, starting a tank will live rock is not a bad way to go, it's just that if you are setting up a small system (<150 gal) then it is sometimes difficult to get all the organisms (such as large tangs) you might need to control all the organisms that might come in on the live rock. You might be fine for 2-3 years without a problem, but I'm a lazy SOB, I prefer to set up a tank and not move a single rock again for years. The last several tanks I have set up I have used only dead base rock collected up on the beach away from the water in tropical locations. I've brought rocks/broken up large shells back from Honduras, Hawaii, Fiji, and Belize. I've always been completely honest with the customs folks on this and they never have a problem if it is DEAD rock with no significant amount of soil, etc. If the rock is clean enough from being bleached naturally in the sun and rain it is safe to go straight into a tank. If it's got some organic debris on it then I soak it in a dilute bleach solution for a week or so and then rinse and let dry for a time. Boiling will only cook the organic material, bleach oxidizes and solubilizes the material so it can be washed away.
I then seed a tank with a few VERY carefully selected piece of live rock from one of my established systems. Check them out at www.angelfire.com/ma3/ghcorals/ I think I end up with a pretty nice biodiversity using this method. And I didn't need to use ANY wild collected live rock. All my tanks were set up this way. The last tank that I had that started with live rock had to be completely torn down due primarly to a massive Bryosis outbreak that I did just about everything to control.
Anyhow, it is possible to set up a nice system without the use of any significant amounts of live rock. It's nice not to have the ammonia spike as well!
- Greg Hiller
Well...you might also get (and I've gotten all of the following from live rock) Aiptasia, Valonia, Bryopsis, red flat worms, Sargassum, red filimentous algae that nothing will eat, and red bulbous algae that nothing will eat. Don't get me wrong, starting a tank will live rock is not a bad way to go, it's just that if you are setting up a small system (<150 gal) then it is sometimes difficult to get all the organisms (such as large tangs) you might need to control all the organisms that might come in on the live rock. You might be fine for 2-3 years without a problem, but I'm a lazy SOB, I prefer to set up a tank and not move a single rock again for years. The last several tanks I have set up I have used only dead base rock collected up on the beach away from the water in tropical locations. I've brought rocks/broken up large shells back from Honduras, Hawaii, Fiji, and Belize. I've always been completely honest with the customs folks on this and they never have a problem if it is DEAD rock with no significant amount of soil, etc. If the rock is clean enough from being bleached naturally in the sun and rain it is safe to go straight into a tank. If it's got some organic debris on it then I soak it in a dilute bleach solution for a week or so and then rinse and let dry for a time. Boiling will only cook the organic material, bleach oxidizes and solubilizes the material so it can be washed away.
I then seed a tank with a few VERY carefully selected piece of live rock from one of my established systems. Check them out at www.angelfire.com/ma3/ghcorals/ I think I end up with a pretty nice biodiversity using this method. And I didn't need to use ANY wild collected live rock. All my tanks were set up this way. The last tank that I had that started with live rock had to be completely torn down due primarly to a massive Bryosis outbreak that I did just about everything to control.
Anyhow, it is possible to set up a nice system without the use of any significant amounts of live rock. It's nice not to have the ammonia spike as well!
- Greg Hiller
what you should do is bye 30 to forty lbs of live rock...you live near the ocean I take it?..go to the beach at low tide and look for coraline incrusted rock..throw them right in...what happens is the old coraline dies but new coraline attaches .....IMO
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