Hi Randy!
Is this the premium or base live rock??Just use the rock and water changes. I have 40 lbs of gulf live rock that i have gotten in the last month or so. I setup a 20 gallon to keep it in with a heater, two koralias, a cheap led light, and two fish so something is being fed and keeping nutrients going. There wasnt a lot of die off, but definitely some. The rock is beautiful. The water had a slight smell for the first few days. I did 50% water changes for the first few days, then 25% for a few more days, now i do a 25% every few days, and the rock is completely usable(probably is anyway after just a few water changes, and a visual inspection/smell test). I have added a few chunks of it to my 3 month old reef which i started with all dry rock. I pulled out some of the dry and replaced it with the gulf rock. Heres my 30 or so lbs of it, minus what i grabbed and put into my reef. This is my first time getting genuine live rock. Its night and day compared to dry rock. Its loaded with purple and red coralline. I was nervous to get real live rock due to pests, but The hitch hikers havent been bad that i have noticed. I caught a few crabs and isolated them, but they may have been harmless anyway. I caught one welk snail, and have nuked a few aiptasias. I read a lot on here first, and agree with the general concensus, the pros far outweigh any cons with liverock
I got the premium. I suppose the very best option would be to get the LR, put it into its own tank for a week or so, and observe it for pests, and remove things as you see fit. This is the route i took. I havent observed any issues with the liverock.
Curious if there was a delay in shipping or getting the rock in the tank.
Get the live rock. 1lb per gallon.
The last one I caught, which remained elusive for months, was with a bottle trap that I put mysis and krill in, and I poked a ton of holes in the bottle trap.
No - if stuff from the live ocean rock are 'dead' or die shortly afterwards - your ammonia can spick - However - as you can see the bacteria rapidly (and its probably heterotrophic bacteria mostly) - can rapidly reduce it. To me your ammonia reads 0, your nitrite is a little high - but it shouldn't cause a problem and will likely drop quickly, and your nigreat is at the level just above 0 - which is also fine. It's a bit hard to tell due to photography and lighting.Hi All!
Quick question regarding cycling with ocean live rock. I recently purchased 35 lbs of live ocean rock from Gulf Live Rock and put it in my new SR80. I’m sure there was some die off on the rock, however a lot of the larger hitchhikers survived (clams/mussels/tunicates). I did also add Fritz TurboStart 900, as my lfs suggested it. When I initially tested the water, the ammonia/nitrite were spiked (see attached). Six days later, it looked like ammonia looks much better, but the nitrite and nitrate are spiked. I know this is all part of a cycle, but shouldn’t the live ocean rock and turbostart eliminate a full cycle? Do I still need to wait until the nitrite/nitrate gets to 0 before adding any fish?
Thank you!!
I would add the Fritz - though it will cycle fine without it - this will speed things up - and hopefully will lessen the need for water changes, etc - though - you will likely need one. And you're correct IMHO - it is kind of a chain reaction - one thing dies, then another then ammonia then more, etc etc. To make this more clear - what I mean is that dead thing decomposing can affect the living things that would not die. So In this case I disagree with Randy - though - he's correct with nothing - things will still move forward - but if your goal was to have living things from the ocean - adding bacteria may halt some ammonia production from anything else that is dying.
