Is club soda dip better than a hypo dip?

leo12345

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I got some live rock a few months ago and it’s been such a pain since the beginning, I got all kinds bad hitchhikers so I just need to remove everything from the rock. I did a hypo dip but that did nothing. I saw some people were dipping them in club soda, would that work better? And if not what would be better?
 

MoshJosh

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I prefer tonic water, just dip a few shots of gin in the tonic and you are all set! Just kidding of course.

Just kidding, I have never heard of a soda dip personally, but I am pretty new. Trying to get rid of algae? Hitchhikers? or just everything?
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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that goes against the reason you're buying live rock though, and paying for the diversity

buy dry rock and bring it up as you wish or, buy live rock, and hand cure it in an observation tank well before you set up a display with it, that way when it expresses various successions of growths you can surgically remove them, not via dip. adding unchecked materials into the display is the risk, it's not the actual live rock inclusion that's bad. you could bring up 100 pounds of quality live rock in a common brute can setup, rotating which rocks are at the top and feeding them lightly, shining a reef light on them to cure them out half a year: perfect start and you'll see the majority of hitchhiker challenges well before they're locked in position in a display.
 
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Troylee

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Ive done everything, I used a red light at night to find things, kept in a quarantine tank to find critters, hypo dip, inspected each rock and stuck a stick in every hole I could get it into to try to flush anything out, traps, I did something similar to the feeding thing you said But I still see gorilla crabs, unknown weird worms and small fast creatures and I hear something clicking every night and I’m scared it’s a mantis. I even destroyed my rockwork to take out every piece of my rock to try to find whatever is clicking but it’s not working so far. So I’m done i don’t have time for this I just want fish already I just want to get rid of everything on the rock and keep the bacteria so I don’t have to cycle my tank again. I’ve already separated some critters I like so I could care less about what happens to everything else.
Throw it in the sump and put dry in the display.. after a month sell the stuff in the sump..
 
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leo12345

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that goes against the reason you're buying live rock though, and paying for the diversity

buy dry rock and bring it up as you wish or, buy live rock, and hand cure it in an observation tank well before you set up a display with it, that way when it expresses various successions of growths you can surgically remove them, not via dip. adding unchecked materials into the display is the risk, it's not the actual live rock inclusion that's bad. you could bring up 100 pounds of quality live rock in a common brute can setup, rotating which rocks are at the top and feeding them lightly, shining a reef light on them to cure them out half a year: perfect start and you'll see the majority of hitchhiker challenges well before they're locked in position in a display.
Ive done everything, I used a red light at night to find things, kept in a quarantine tank to find critters, hypo dip, inspected each rock and stuck a stick in every hole I could get it into to try to flush anything out, traps, I did something similar to the feeding thing you said But I still see gorilla crabs, unknown weird worms and small fast creatures and I hear something clicking every night and I’m scared it’s a mantis. I even destroyed my rockwork to take out every piece of my rock to try to find whatever is clicking but it’s not working so far. So I’m done i don’t have time for this I just want fish already I just want to get rid of everything on the rock and keep the bacteria so I don’t have to cycle my tank again. I’ve already separated some critters I like so I could care less about what happens to everything else.
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Don't buy from that source, buy cured live rock from a pet store, no gorilla crabs only the goodies like coralline

Here's my pet store selling 100 lbs of it

20230107_123731-1.jpg
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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That's a good idea Troy has

Isolate some dry rock in your sump in the water flow path of the really good rock but not next to it, in the display

It'll cycle a pick up coralline spores free of charge, free of testing needs, and exclude mostly all bad hitchhikers
 
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leo12345

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Don't buy from that source, buy cured live rock from a pet store, no gorilla crabs only the goodies like coralline

Here's my pet store selling 100 lbs of it

20230107_123731-1.jpg
People to told me that’s not “real live rock” and I listened to them and got the kp rock I have now which is the worst mistake I’ve ever made.
If you have a sump put the live rock in there, that way the bad critters can't get up to the tank, but the bacteria still can.
I don’t have I sump nor do I have the time to set up one.
 
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leo12345

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That's a good idea Troy has

Isolate some dry rock in your sump in the water flow path of the really good rock but not next to it, in the display

It'll cycle a pick up coralline spores free of charge, free of testing needs, and exclude mostly all bad hitchhikers
I don’t have the money to spend on more rock right now, so there’s no way I can just get rid of everything by doing a dip? I did a dip before and it had no effect on my tank.
 
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Tamberav

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I used KPA rock and didn't really have anything bad. My friend used it too and got a lot of "bad" crabs but he put a glass leaning against his rocks with fish food in it and caught them out over time. They try to get to the food and fall in the glass and can't climb back out. They never really seemed to cause any trouble but perhaps they would have if they got large enough. His is 100g tank so a lot of live KPA rock but it's doing well.

Peroxide (just enough to bubble) + tank water will kill lots of things... good too though...

It won't kill things like vermatid though but you tend to get those on frag plugs anyways.

I would not worry about 'weird' worms. Just because you don't know what it is, doesn't make it bad. The clicking could just be a pistol shrimp and the common mantis that come on KPA rock are small species and not a huge threat to fish, they will eat your snails/hermits and your gorilla crabs so really one would be a blessing if it ate the crabs, ha! If it is a mantis, you would probably see it during the day eventually though so I am going to say pistol. Neither are terribly alarming.
 
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MoshJosh

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I think there are a few options. Nuke the rock and just use it as dry rock. While it is still alive you could throw some media in the tank (marine pure or sea chem matrix) and use that to "re-cycle" the rock after you nuke it. Or just use bottled media and start from scratch. Again this would be nuking (killing) the live rock, doing your best to clean it, and then putting it in the tank as dry rock.

Could also just set up the tank and when you can afford it just introduce predators to kill the crabs and other un-wanteds. Maybe some kind of puffer? You would have to get rid of the predator eventually if you want corals, but still.

It sucks when a plan falls apart, especially when that leaves you low on resources and funds. I think most of us have been there and we feel for your situation.
 
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MoshJosh

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Also, some more background might help as well. How big is the tank? How old is tank? Any fish or corals? What filtration (not a sump, are you using a canister or hang on back? What hitchhikers are giving you the most trouble (gorilla crabs, and maybe a mantis, anything else)? What is your goal for the tank (reef, SPS, fowler)?
 
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bushdoc

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I guess Live Rock is not for everybody.
People do hypersalinity dip of Live Rock, this way most of worms, crabs and other crawling hitchhikers will leave the rock, but most of the bacteria and coralline algae will stay.
 
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zdrc

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A soda water dip sounds unhinged. May as well just do a bleach dip? I would do a freshwater dip before a soda water dip.

I got KP rock too. It came with an assortment of gorilla crabs, possibly some kind of eunice worm (not a bobbit, the head was different), a pistol shrimp (I think this is probably what you have), and some big-butt bristleworms. I didn't sweat it and got fish anyway. They're all fine. I remove the gorilla crabs when I see them, and I think the eunice perished. The pistol shrimp still makes noise at all times, but I don't mind it. I do wish I saw it from time to time though. The only downside is something in the tank really has a taste for emerald crabs. Any I add get annihilated overnight. Perhaps I need to add a larger one.

Maybe I'm too laid back, but I would just get fish already and not worry about it. I doubt you have a mantis. I think you would've seen it by now and it's much more likely that you have a pistol shrimp. The gorilla crabs could be a problem, but I would just pull them out as you see them.
 
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Tamberav

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A soda water dip sounds unhinged. May as well just do a bleach dip? I would do a freshwater dip before a soda water dip.

I got KP rock too. It came with an assortment of gorilla crabs, possibly some kind of eunice worm (not a bobbit, the head was different), a pistol shrimp (I think this is probably what you have), and some big-butt bristleworms. I didn't sweat it and got fish anyway. They're all fine. I remove the gorilla crabs when I see them, and I think the eunice perished. The pistol shrimp still makes noise at all times, but I don't mind it. I do wish I saw it from time to time though. The only downside is something in the tank really has a taste for emerald crabs. Any I add get annihilated overnight. Perhaps I need to add a larger one.

Maybe I'm too laid back, but I would just get fish already and not worry about it. I doubt you have a mantis. I think you would've seen it by now and it's much more likely that you have a pistol shrimp. The gorilla crabs could be a problem, but I would just pull them out as you see them.

100% this.
 
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