Is My LR Salvageable?

[woody189]

Okay... So I haven't been on these forums for about 8 months, and I haven't had any fish for about 4. What that means is that since I haven't touched my tank in that time, about 40% of my water has evaporated, so you can guess how high my salinity is.
 
I didn't have time to care for my tank and since I was neglecting them, I gave them away, along with CUC and whatever else I had. I then left my tank alone while I was away at school. I had 45 Lbs of LR, now probably 45 lbs of dead rock.
 
I plan on restarting my tank in the future, but not for at least a year. What should I do with the rock? I'm guessing whatever beneficial that was on it is dead, but I would like your opinions.
 
If it's possible, I would like to salvage it and not make it base rock so I don't have to buy fresh LR to seed this rock. However, I'm pretty sure that's not possible.
 
BTW, I love the new colors and everything on the site. And when I typed saltwaterfish.com/vb it took me here and I was so scared. I thought they sold the site to someone else. What a relief my beloved messageboard hasn't abandoned me as I had abandoned it for the past 8 months
 
TIA

 

[jstdv8]

as long as there are no chemicals in the rock it should just need to go through a cycle again with the correct salinity.
Even if the bacteria on the rock all died off its always reusable, it just needs a chance to become live again. you do this by getting all yuor stuff in line, correct salinity and such, get your powerheads going and add a dinner shrimp to the tak to get some ammonia in there.
This will start the cycle and start getting the correct bacteria back to where it needs to be.

 

[woody189]

Thanks, that's good news. But what do you suppose I should do since I'm not going to be using the rock for a year+??

 

[flower]

 

 
Missed you by the way...
 
 
When I got divorced the same thing happened to me, I had left for months on end...when I finally returned to the house after kicking the X out...water almost was completely gone from my 75g but still covered the rock, my pumps were running and shooting water everywhere inside the tank, bouncing off the walls in there...I was amazed that not only was my rock still live, a few hermits were actually crawling around alive and well. I apparently had missed them when I gave all my livestock away.
I refilled the tank with fresh water, the right amount of salt was already in there, that’s all I did..It never cycled, it was ready to go.

So if you want to try and reset the tank now...just set it up and watch it to see, if it cycles it cycles but it may be alright as is.

If you want to store the rock for a year, just put it in a tub, like jstdv8 tells you..When you’re ready to start again use it as base rock, just add a few live rocks and let it reseed, some critters may have laid eggs and they may return when water is there again.

You rock is not dead because of the high salinity, its fine right now, but if you store it for a year it will be base rock.

Sadly power heads and pumps are hard to keep. They get hard and crusty even when you clean them real good. So in a year you might have to repurchase them. All hoses and tubes will get stiff and will likely be unusable, toss the sand it will become a concrete block. Whatever you do, don't leave it in the tank to dry out or you will have to buy another tank too.

Store things right and you can save yourself allot of money. Otherwise you will be starting from scratch and that’s hard to do.

 

[meowzer]

Welcome back

 

[woody189]

Alright. Thank you all. I think I may just start the tank back up and keep it simple. Just coming back to the forums reminds me how much I miss my tank.