How to make dead live rock LIVE again???

stachy

Member
Ok, so 3 weeks ago one of my power outlets caught fire and crashed my 72 gal tank. Well, smoke, a fire extinguisher (since a pot of water from the sink didn’t work -electrical fire) and heat crashed my tank. I removed the fish, coral, and inverts and put them into a 55 gal trash container. I made up what ro water I had and hope for the best. The next day a bought a 14 gal BIOcube and put the survivors into it. Two days later, everything except 2 false percs, yellow tang and spotted goby were dead.
I lost countless zoas, zena, kent, shrooms, a super large colt, and too much to list. Here is a before and after pic.
On to my question. I have 90-100 lbs of dead live rock - so dead rock, back in the 72 gal in the garage. I have 2 power heads on it and a heater. Its cycling, I’m starting to get diatoms. Anyway, I want to salvage this rock. I will buy some new live rock and seed the tank with it.
Do I need to run the filters and or lights to make it into live rock again. I am planning on keeping the tank in the garage for the next 3-4 months. I don't want to set it up in the house until all of the construction/ fire clean-up is done. I do want to start the rock in the garage. So again what would be my best bet to revive this rock in the garage. I am willing to set it up as though its a fully functions tank minus the coral and fish. Which makes me wonder if I should have a small clean up crew in there.
Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.


 
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allenk

Guest
"live rock" is simply rock that has the colonies of bacteria necessary to process the bioload of the tank inhabitants. I would guess your "dead live rock" is already on its way to being "live live rock" as we speak. If you were to take any porous object and put it in a saltwater tank, it would eventually become a home for the bacteria that makes "live" rock live. So, the rock you have in the 75 gallon tank with the powerheads is already going through the cycle of becoming live rock. This will occur whether you "seed" it or not. Of course, there has to be something decaying or adding waste to the tank. If your rock really is dead, then there are probably dead critters in the rock providing this "food" to support your colonies of bacteria. I don't think you need light for these bacteria to grow. You just need water flow, rock, and a "food" source (a fish, a dead shrimp, decaying matter on the rock itself if it was previously live).
 

mcbdz

Active Member
As mentioned above, also if you want the good stuff to inhabat it then you'll need to have it seeded with it from live rock and keep up your water quality. If you want it to grow coralline while in there just a regular lights I believe and keep your cal. and alk good.
 
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