adding liverock?

[travis truman]

I have a fish only tank as of right now and found out that its all about LR. IM pretty sure that if I add LR my tank will have to recycle. If so, what do I do with my fish. (perc clown-coral beauty)
Any thoughts?

 

[a_fender69]

As long as you add cured live rock you will be fine! How do you tell if it is cured? Smell the rock out of the water. If you feel as if your are going to gag, it is not cured. All rock has a small smell but it should be very much. Also, live rock has critters, ie. manitis shrimp, crabs, bristle worms ( all very bad). To get rid of these, prior to putting the rock in the tank, put in a 5 gal bucket for about 15min with the salinty at 1.035. the high salt content will make everything run to the bottom of the bucket. You might lose some good starfish but you will loose even more if you have any of the above mentioned animals

 

[luvnluk]

How long have you had your FO? How big is your tank and how much LR are you adding? The recommended amount of LR (1-2# per gal) and you need to know whether it is cured or uncured.....if it's uncured, or you bought it mail-order, then you'll want to cure it before you add it to your main tank (if you already have fish). IMO - put the fish (just two?) in quarantine, add the appropriate amount of LR/LS and let it cycle.

 

[a&m aggie 04']

yes your tank will "recycle" if you add uncured live rock
there are 2 types of live rock, cured and uncured. Cured has already been thru its "cycle" and can be added straight to an already established tank, uncured rock cannot be added to an already est. tank b/c it would have die off and cause an ammonia spike in your tank. Thus killing all your fish.
Any rock you have shipped to you will be uncured even if it states it is cured. B/C the once cured live rock in the shipping process will have some substantial die off and become uncured.
You could buy already cured live rock from a fish store, but its about double the price. Or you could order some uncured and cure it yourself. To cure your rock you'll have to put it in a separate tank w/a powerhead and (optional) protein skimmer, and leave it in there until its cycle completes. Usually around a month.
There are lots of posts on how to cure rock, but those are the basics
HTH

 

[diddykang]

would a 15 minute drive back from the LFS cause the LR to become uncured again?

 

[jedininja]

One thing you could do is buy all the liverock you want, and then put that into a big bin or an extra tank if you have one. Those large storage bins that they sell at walmart work well. Add a powerhead and give it some light and let it sit for a few weeks. This will let die-off occur naturally and a cycle will begin. Test the water in that bin, and once the cycle is over, you will have perfectly cured liverock. That way you are totally sure thatt he rock is cured and you wont be taking any risks.

 

[a&m aggie 04']

no a 15 min drive would not uncure rock. But i would not add all the rock at once. Id do say maybe 10-15 lbs maybe a week, and keep testing to make sure you get no readings for ammonia and nitrite.
How much rock are you planning to add???

 

[travis truman]

alright.......heres the scoop
55 gallon acrylic
I'd like to have 40-45 pds....maybe even less
I have a ten gallon tank.......if I need to quarentine that should work because I had my perc clown in there to start with (test take)
thanks for the info........anything else I need to know before I get started?

 

[travis truman]

oh yeah.......and ive had this FO tank for about 5 months

 

[leboeuf]

IMO take the perc back to the LFS and add all the LR you want. You might want to consider adding more than 50lbs. Its addictive watching all the life on them. The more water allowed to circulate around the LR will help dilute the concentrated levels. It will speed the process..... JMO