I've add live rock the my new tank and I regret it.

[Hugo Garcia]

So today I added live rock to kick start the cycle of my new tank, and now I deeply regret it. It had some majano anemone on it and now I'm very paranoid that all other kinds of pests have infected my tank. I there a way to make sure the tank is safe? Is it too late to remove the live rock? If I lower the salinity levels will parasits die and bacteria stay alaive?

Please give me some ideas of how I should proceed.

Thanks

Hugo Garcia

 

[skim]

Remove the Rock and let dry out in the Sun to kill them off. They will reproduce and over take the tank if you do not take action and at this point you have the best opportunity. I would also get ride of the Hawaiian Punch dude. You may also want to give your filter a good cleaning and put new filter media in, they may have offspring and filter may have sucked them up.

 

[aykwm]

Hypo doesnt work, if you want to be 100% sure it doesnt have pests you can go fallow for 76 days or disinfect the lr by bleacing . Hitchhikers like anemones or worms etc... might not get affected by the fallow period, but they are safe in general. If you want to get rid of anemone there are many tutorials and methods available on the forum in the anemone section but i found the most effective is removing the rock from the water for few minutes.

Best of luck

 

[Tautog]

Don't regret it, it's a learning curve we all go through, not all pests are bad

 

[nashvillian]

I would leave the live rock in and embrace the cornucopia of life that it brings to your aquarium, which will ultimately be of greater good than not. You can buy a peppermint shrimp who will eat all of the pest anemones.

 

[Jason mack]

I would leave the live rock in and embrace the cornucopia of life that it brings to your aquarium, which will ultimately be of greater good than not. You can buy a peppermint shrimp who will eat all of the pest anemones.

+1

 

[bsagea]

We had a fireworm invade our tank when we started it with live rock from the LFS as a hitchiker. We would never use live rock again. Any other tank we have started, has been with dry rock like Marco or such. Not going through that again. It wiped out numerous clams, snails etc. That's the problem with live rock, you just never know what might be in it.

 

[Hugo Garcia]

I would leave the live rock in and embrace the cornucopia of life that it brings to your aquarium, which will ultimately be of greater good than not. You can buy a peppermint shrimp who will eat all of the pest anemones.

I get your point, and I'll try to be less paranoid. But should I assume that the tank has ick now, or am I just being crazy? Since I stared the tank a couple of days ago should when and how should I add a clean up crew? Will that make the ich problem worse?

 

[Jason mack]

I get your point, and I'll try to be less paranoid. But should I assume that the tank has ick now, or am I just being crazy? Since I stared the tank a couple of days ago should when and how should I add a clean up crew? Will that make the ich problem worse?

I wouldn't assume anything .. but why would you now have ich ?? I would just have patience.. let the tank do it's thing and cycle .. in the meantime I would do as much research on here about this wonderful hobby as you can .. ask questions read through all posts you find interesting..or that apply too you !! Good luck and happy reefing ..

 

[Jason mack]

This is a good read from @Brew12
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycling-an-aquarium.306554/

 

[seastar]

Since you just setup it up, continue to let it cycle and enjoy that life that came on the live rock! I still find amazing things and wonder how it's managed to evade my watchful eye all this time. To me it's really all part of the amazing reefing experience, good or bad. Most things have a proven way to combat/counter act negative additions (like a peppermint shrimp as mentioned before for your current situation). IMHO it's all part of the process in making us better reefers.

 

[meli81]

I like to see the weird stuff that come out lol

 

[skim]

I would leave the live rock in and embrace the cornucopia of life that it brings to your aquarium, which will ultimately be of greater good than not. You can buy a peppermint shrimp who will eat all of the pest anemones.

You may want to read up on Majano's, Peppermint Shrimp will not touch them. If you decide to leave rack in place you can try a File Fish, they are known to eat Majano. I am also speaking from experience, if left alone they will spread like Dandelions. The more there is the faster they spread.

 

[RP709]

What skim said.

 

[fishybizzness]

I also had a meltdown during my cycle when I discovered aptasia on the live rock I got from the ocean. After the cycle I added a file fish and he ate it all within a week. Turned out to not be as big a problem as I made it out to be..

 

[ghawiii]

So today I added live rock to kick start the cycle of my new tank, and now I deeply regret it. It had some majano anemone on it and now I'm very paranoid that all other kinds of pests have infected my tank. I there a way to make sure the tank is safe? Is it too late to remove the live rock? If I lower the salinity levels will parasits die and bacteria stay alaive?

Please give me some ideas of how I should proceed.

Thanks

Hugo Garcia

At the end of the day you're going to wind up having stuff in that tank that you didn't intend to, be it from a frag or something else so there's no use fretting about it now. I would just do my best to try and not put anything else in there that you don't want; dipping is key. As far as the anemone I have heard you can take super glue and glue it inside its hole and it should die. I have never tried this so maybe someone else can throw their opinion on the glue option. I will tell you that one of the things that really captivated me about reefkeeping was finding new and unexpected things in the tank. A majority of the things we'll find have something that you can purchase that will keep it at Bay like peppermint shrimp or certain fish for different critters. So I guess what I'm trying to say is don't sweat it too much, just try to enjoy the process, take your time with it, and enjoy it!

 

[Fettman2006]

quick question about using super glue or such to get rid of anemones. do the dead anemones throw off the water parameters?

 

[Firethorn77]

I've got two peppermint shrimp that are aptasia beasts, they wiped them out in no time at all. A bad outbreak in my 120 took a couple weeks, then in my 40 breeder about two days. Love those shrimp.

 

[gurumasta]

Pests are part of this hobby. Even if you don't introduce them with your rock you eventually will a coral or algae that you add down the road. The live rock will help your tank cycle much faster and introduce a lot beneficial bacteria and hitchhikers as well. I use aiptasia x on majano if I see one and it seems to at least temporarily get rid of it or slow it down. At this point if you see an anemone you don't want just pull that piece of rock out and scrape it off. Ich is a fish parasite so I wouldn't worry about that coming in any rock.

 

[cj in sac ca]

Just sit back take a deep breath and relax. Let it cycle and then enjoy it. As stated earlier you will 99.99% get things you don't want from coral frags even just getting fish can carry things on them. I personally don't mind little pest in my tank it's all part of the eco system. And usually there is some fish or invert to help rid them. If you wanna see something cool wait an hr or so after you turn lights out and it dark, look on the rocks and substrate with a flash light. There will be things you didn't know where there that live deep in the rock crevice. Welcome to the hobby and being broke for the rest of your life . Lol/jk by the way we hold weekly meetings for your new addiction called reef keeping!!! Enjoy