Live Rock Help

[bigolebossman]

First off I want to tell you all that I'm new to saltwater.com and after going through some of the forums I decided this was the place for me. You guys have so much information that's really helpful to some of us.
Now for my questions, I had two tanks with live rocks and when I moved I had to take them down. I move in July, and now I'm ready to start my tanks up again. I wanted to know if I could reuse the same rocks that I had previously. Will the rocks come back to life if I let them sit in the tanks for a while. If so how long would the process be before I start to see the algae and other marine organism return. Also I'm planning on buying some more rock and would like to know if it's okay to add them together. Thanks in advance.
One more thing, I've been doing some online research regarding moonlights, and I notice people we're actually making they're own version of moonlights. Can anyone share any information on how do I go about doing this. Again thank you all in advance
Bigolebossman

 

[drewsbrews]

I'm new and can't realy help with the live rock scenario.
But as far as led moonlights go it seemed to me as if they were all pretty much either a couple high output leds, or a strip of lower output leds. I went on ebay and picked up a flexible strip of blue LEDs that had a sticky backing. I have yet to use them but they stuck to the underside of my light pretty well and have pigtail wires for a 12v power source (cheap power brick probably).
cost me about $3 sofar

 

[btldreef]

You can still use your rock, although it is no longer "live". My suggestion would be to place all the rock you already own in the tank, then buy Live Rock (wet, but it doesn't matter if it's cured or not) and place some of that in the tank as well. The new live rock that you buy will seed the older dead rock, and it will all become alive. As for how long this takes, each tank is different. I have never bought or used dead rock myself, since LR is abundent and cheap around me, but many people go this route and it turns out fine.
As for LED moonlights, there are many DIY on here, I would recommend posting a new thread regarding that issue. 2Quills and Acrylic are very helpful with DIY lighting.

 

[monsinour]

Yea, stick the old rock in the tank with the new rock and after a while, you wont be able to tell the difference between the 2.
For me, I got about 25 lbs of live rock, 20 lbs of semi live rock, and 25 lbs of dead rock. It took me about a month for the cycle to complete in my tank. The live rock was really alive and had tons of stuff on it. I have been trying to remove the undesirable macro algea off of the rock ever since the cycle completed and I have a long way to go. But I did find that even though I took off the "bad" stuff (Halimeda) the good stuff is growing better than ever.
As far as LED moon lights, I dont have any and I wont be getting anything any time soon. I really want them, but right now, I just cant get them. DIY for these makes some sense.

 

[flintlbc]

It's perfectly fine to add the old rocks with the new setup. I suggest you atleast have one live rock in the tank with it, it will turn all the dead rock into live rock after cycling