Live Rock / Mixing Salt Water Question

[Jobu183]

Hey All-

Newbie here. Recieved a Biocube 32 for christmas and very much looking forward to getting into the hobby.

Question I have-> how long will live rock stay 'live' outside of salt water.

Isssue-> I jumped the gun a bit and bought Live Rock at the LFS today (~16lbs) with my RoDI getting delivered the same day. I told them that I would have the live rock in the tank in ~24-48 hours and if the live rock would last. They gave me a styrofoam cooler and laid some wet newspaper over it the live rock and said it would be fine for that amount of time.

Didn't realize that when you mix your own salt water, the mixing process is ~24 hours which is probably going to put me over the 48 hours or so until the live rock is in the tank.

My current thought is to mix the salt water in an empty tank for 24 hours and then add my live rock and live sand after the water mixes.

WIll the live rock make it with just newspaper? is there anything else I can do to prolong it?

Thanks!

 

[blaxsun]

Saltwater is good-to-go within 15-20 minutes. I'd get the water in the tank and the live rock in the tank ASAP (if it's still viable). Live rock isn't very common in the prairies so I couldn't tell you if styrofoam/wet newspaper will suffice for 2 days (my thinking is probably not, but I could certainly be wrong). My only experience is with actual rock from my tank; I've never left it exposed (out of water) for more than 5-10 minutes.

 

[Jobu183]

Thank you very much for your help. Appreciate it. Happy to know the mixing doesn't take as long as another article said.

 

[Rmckoy]

Read the instructions on the salt container
Most will tell you how long it needs to mix for

live rocks … as long as you can keep
Them wet there will be some living bacteria on and within it . The issue is if not in water some bacteria will die .
and when adding it to water it doesn’t have the same capability to process the same ammonia
When it’s added to water you will experience some which will die off which can show on a test as elevated ammonia .
As long as you’re planning on cycling the system prior to adding livestock you will be good .

welcome to r2r and happy reefing

 

[Jobu183]

Awesome. Sounds good- it ended up only being under the newspaper for ~24 hours, and was still decently wet when I added it to the tank, so thinking I'll be fine.

Will definitely do a few water tests before adding my first clownfish!

 

[Rmckoy]

Awesome. Sounds good- it ended up only being under the newspaper for ~24 hours, and was still decently wet when I added it to the tank, so thinking I'll be fine.

Will definitely do a few water tests before adding my first clownfish!

With live rock it’s possible to skip the weeks of cycling but it’s not guaranteed .
many factors such as the amount of rocks , how porous the rocks are and the rocks ability to process ammonia and how much it can process in a given time .
I would still monitor and test prior to adding livestock .
even after starting to slowly add livestock I would keep a eye on ammonia for the first week or so