can live rock carry diseases?

[extremepb319]

hello my brother has a 10 gallon tank with some live rock in it and his 2 fish just died in it during the same night. we think it may have been saltwater ick because they looked like they were covered in like fine air bubbles the night before. My question is is that i have a 20 gallon tank which has been doing great for about a year now and only has about 10 pounds of LR. so i was wondering if it would be safe to take his live rock from his tank and put it in mine in case of throwing it out because hes given up on saltwater. is there any way to maybe treat the rock without harming anything in it or anything in my tank if/when i move it?

thanks in advance

 

[Anonymous]

Ich (if it was ich) can be transferred via rock during one stage of it's life cycle. I'd either allow the rock to sit in a fallow (fishless) tank for 4 weeks, or dry it out and then place it in the 20 gallon tank. It will re-seed itself from the existing rock. While the odds are not great, it is a risk adding anything from an infected tank to a healthy system.

 

[extremepb319]

hanks for the help. so how would i let it dry out? just set it out for a few hours or something. never heard of that b4 but i guess when i bought my live rock i got it in a box w/ no water. do you think it might be any other disease that might carry to my tank or will drying out kill a lot of diseases? thanks