Hypo or Hypersalinity Dip for Live Rock to expel and evaluate hitchhikers?

[dochow]

Good morning!

I get my 10lbs of live rock from KP aquatics shipped in water today! Very excited to add some biodiversity to my tank.

However, I have gone through painstaking measures to prevent unwanted hitchhikers up to this point from entering my DT (avoid bubble algae at all costs!). As you can imagine I started with dry rock for this reason. I will start a thread in a few days of how I went from 2.5 gallon to 10 gallon to 20 gallon to Waterbox 100.3 over past 4 months as I’ve slowly began to enter back into the hobby after being out due to travel and my job over the past few years (had to sell my 75 gallon with beloved fish and corals for pennies on the dollar).

So my question is, does a hypo or hypersalinity dip do better to expel hitchhikers from live rock? What salinity are you shooting for? Why one versus the other as I have seen posts for both?

My live rock will go into a 10 gallon invertebrate QT so I can assess what will go into my DT after a fallow period to hopefully prevent fish born disease.

I’m hoping to make sure I dont introduce a Mantis or fireworms and if I have any, I’ll bring to LFS.

What other hitchhikers should I try to remove?

What are people’s take on bristleworms? I’m torn. I see the biological niche, but there seems some risk and overpopulation of them in some tanks.

I’m looking to start a thread with some high quality pictures of hitchhikers for people in the future. I’ve seen some but I’ll try and keep it comprehensive if possible with help from the community and for the community

Happy to be back in reef2reef posting and contributing again! Wonderful knowledge here that you can’t get anywhere else.

 

[Ron Reefman]

All I can say is welcome back and good luck.

 

[duberii]

I don't think either will do exactly what you want it to do. The creatures that are going to be a headache are deep inside the rocks, and the dip is pretty much useless against them since they are somewhat protected inside the rocks from the surrounding water. Other creatures to look for are Oenone Fulgida worms (bright orange, burrows in rocks), and maybe bobbit worms. Also I have heard some stuff about predatory isopods in some rock, and the best way to check for those is apparently to throw in a saltwater molly or feeder fish and check there. Not very common though.

I have what I think is a smaller variant of bristle worms, which I see are largely beneficial. They will adjust their population to respond to how much you feed, so the tanks you see plague-like populations are probably severely overfed or have some other source of nutrient issues like detritus buildup in the sandbed.

Best thing you can do is set up the rock in a different tank and watch it very closely until you feel like you've seen and removed everything you don;t want, but even then it's very likely something will fly under the radar. Live rock is a calculated risk, but you should still do your best to remove anything you don't want.

 

[ScottR]

Salinity changes won’t remove hitchhikers. Only unless you do a strict freshwater dip with RODI. And even then, you probably won’t completely remove them all. They’ll hide in the porous parts of the rock. If you’re worried, best to go with dry rock.

 

[TriggerFinger]

You’re most likely to get pistol shrimp and typical bristleworms; I got 3 pistols in my last batch. Quarantine it and monitor for what you don’t want to keep.

 

[Midrats]

Crabs are the only thing I remove.

 

[Tired]

Quarantine and monitoring is the best method. A few bottle traps (with ventilation holes) will catch crabs, shrimp, and so on, so you can look them over. Also, closely inspect the rock, WITH GLOVES ON, when you get it in.

The really nasty hitchhikers are very rare. Somewhat nasty ones (aggressive crabs, etc) are more common, but less of a big deal to remove.

 

[bnord]

I received a load of KP in paper - in excellent shape - about 3 months back

Perfomed a Hypo @1.010 for 15-20 minutes

it did shake loose 3-4 pistol shrimp which did not fare well in the process (pity) several brittle stars that did and went into the tank and a small mantis which was separated

For the record I have had one sighting of a slightly larger mantis in my rocks, which a bristle worm trap has not managed to catch - so just know it is isn't perfect

that said, I will likely try another smaller rock in the near future (in water like you did) and keep in QT for a while

Welcome back to the hobby, I am relatively new too after a 27 year hiatus

 

[dochow]

Thanks for the info everyone. Here is the rock, I’ll circle some things that I have no idea what they are in a few posts.. There is something large and “fuzzy” inside one of them that looks like maybe a cucumber or maybe one of those isopods... here is some eye candy.

Great looking rock. Some nice bristle stars so far. One large one that came out the second I shut off the lights in my QT.

 

[dochow]

 

[dochow]

What is that!

 

[duberii]

What is that!

Is it moving at all? It could be something like a sponge, a bryzoan, a cucumber...

 

[Tired]

Looks like a sponge. If it doesn't move, probably a sponge.

Brittle stars are harmless and beneficial. Green ones are predatory on fish, the rest should be fine for most things you'd want to keep. You'll probably find micro brittles, those are amazing detritivores (great at fitting into crannies) and will breed in aquaria.

Looks like great rock! Loads of colors. Would love updates on what else comes out, I like seeing rock beasties.

 

[dochow]

Is it moving at all? It could be something like a sponge, a bryzoan, a cucumber...

No movement yet. Very interesting looking. Doesn’t look like a sponge or a cucumber. Will see if it moves overnight.

One dead pistol shrimp so far at bottom of water. No snapping so far so not sure about any others.

Definetly a bunch of brittle stars for sure so far.

Would love to throw this stuff into my DT right now! Gotta have some patience!

 

[duberii]

No movement yet. Very interesting looking. Doesn’t look like a sponge or a cucumber. Will see if it moves overnight.

One dead pistol shrimp so far at bottom of water. No snapping so far so not sure about any others.

Definetly a bunch of brittle stars for sure so far.

Would love to throw this stuff into my DT right now! Gotta have some patience!

If you see something you like, there's no harm in tossing it into the tank now. If you like the brittle stars, throw them in. Pretty much anything that can harbor extra life should be kept out. Anything you specifically picked out is fine to put in the tank

 

[JimC]

Following along.

Received 30lbs from KP today also.

Have a 6in dead goldentail eel. Bummed he didnt make it.

Wife received the pkg while I was at work. Yes, the call about a snake in the box was frantic!

 

[Tired]

Wow, an eel in the box? That's really cool! But I'm surprised they didn't notice it and not ship it. Poor thing must have been deep in a rock somewhere.

Do you still have it? Rubbing alcohol that you can buy at a drugstore works perfectly fine to preserve small animal specimens for home/novelty purposes. You could put it in a jar if you want to keep it. Just make sure the lid is on tight, and replace any alcohol that evaporates.

 

[dochow]

Looks like a sponge. If it doesn't move, probably a sponge.

Brittle stars are harmless and beneficial. Green ones are predatory on fish, the rest should be fine for most things you'd want to keep. You'll probably find micro brittles, those are amazing detritivores (great at fitting into crannies) and will breed in aquaria.

Looks like great rock! Loads of colors. Would love updates on what else comes out, I like seeing rock beasties.

Rock looks amazing honestly.

Following along.

Received 30lbs from KP today also.

Have a 6in dead goldentail eel. Bummed he didnt make it.

Wife received the pkg while I was at work. Yes, the call about a snake in the box was frantic!

Following along.

Received 30lbs from KP today also.

Have a 6in dead goldentail eel. Bummed he didnt make it.

Wife received the pkg while I was at work. Yes, the call about a snake in the box was frantic!

Following along.

Received 30lbs from KP today also.

Have a 6in dead goldentail eel. Bummed he didnt make it.

Wife received the pkg while I was at work. Yes, the call about a snake in the box was frantic!

Following along.

Received 30lbs from KP today also.

Have a 6in dead goldentail eel. Bummed he didnt make it.

Wife received the pkg while I was at work. Yes, the call about a snake in the box was frantic!

Amazing stuff so far. Very happy. Even if I don’t get any other invertebrates, the bacteria, sponges, algae and coralline algae are priceless for biological diversity to add to my dry rock scape

 

[Tired]

If anyone is reading this who might buy live ocean rock from a LFS, you want it to look like THAT. A bit less color is possible, but you want to see this sort of color variation, in patterns, and you want to see weird things growing on it. Some LFS still carry the good stuff, often pre-cycled and done with the die-off.
If you buy live rock that's done with the shipping die-off, you can pretty much instantly cycle your tank, from how much bacteria comes in on it. I started my tank with live rock, and I had some hitchhiker zoanthids open after less than 24 hours. It's still best to add cleanup crew not-quite-immediately, and wait a week or two before adding fish, but that's an excess of caution rather than a requirement.

OP, I would be curious to know your ammonia levels as you watch this rock, if this was shipped with water. I would bet money you'll see very little, if any.

 

[dochow]

I have an ammonia alert in there now and I’ll throw my Seneye in there in a few days.

This rock had no “smell.” Essentially smelled of the ocean. No sulfur smell.

I think you are right, probably not going to see ammonia.

The rock is in a 10 gallon waterbox for QT so I can document how this goes.

BTW Phillip at KP was super professional. I forgot to order in water and I asked him before shipping and he shipped in water and just send me PayPal request for shipping in water.

Just a very good business practice that’s hard to find these days.