Reviving my live rock....

aysiana

aysiana

New Member
I recently was advised to "kill" all my live rock. My LFS advised me to bleach all of my LR after explaining that all my fish keep dying and I want to start my tank over without the risk of any old problems arising. Meaning, if my tank was infected with something that kept killing new fish, I wanted to be sure whatever it was, wasn't living on my LR. So, I bleached all the LR, got rid of the crushed coral and put live aragonite instead. Now Im just wondering if my LR will ever come back to life?? Im not planning to make a reef tank or anything, so I dont want to have to add a bunch of supplements or anything if I dont have to. Does anyone know of a way to help my live rock come back to life?? Oh, and I dont have any fish in there right now either. Just the LR and LS.
 
rayraypico

rayraypico

Member
Get a second opinion before listening to your LFS. I think bleaching your live rock is a really bad idea. If you completly bleached it I would highly doubt that you rock will come back to life without adding more live rock to it. Depending upon how much rock you have you will need to add rock that will then seed the bleached rock and it will come alive again that way
 
aysiana

aysiana

New Member
Okay, thanks. Have any idea how long it might take to come back "alive" once add some new LR?? As far as the bleaching, I set all my LR in a salt bucket filled it with water and added about 3 cups of bleach. Let is sit overnight, then repeated. Then rinsed like crazy, let it sit a bucket of freshwater over night. Then re-rinsed, changed the freshwater, and sit another night. Then for 3 more nights, did the same, only this time used some water conditioner mixed in with the freshwater to hopefully kill any chlorime remnants that I hadn't gotten rid of. Then I let them dry in the sun. Before I put them in my tank I made sure I couldnt smell any bleach, matter of fact, they even started more lke their original smell.
I tell ya one thing, Im almost glad theyre back almost white....maybe this time I can get some prettier colors to form on them than before. Before they were just dull brownish greenish. I want some of those prettier purplish colors if possible.
 
rayraypico

rayraypico

Member
it will take allot of time to get those purple colors. You will need to maintain excellent water quality for a few months
 
coxy101

coxy101

Member
I had about 30 pounds of "base rock", which is rock that doesn't have life on it (like your bleached rock is now) and I added 25 lbs of "live rock" (rock with little creatures and purple corraline algae) to it. The corraline algae has started to spread to the base rock and my tank is 3 months old. So if you added new rock to your tank it would eventually spread the life to your bleached rock, but it may take a few months.
HTH (hope that helps):)
 
aysiana

aysiana

New Member
Yes, it does. Thanks. One more question, is there any one particular kind of LR thats better for water quality than another, or are they all pretty much the same?? When I picked my LR initially, I just chose by the color and shape I wanted
 
marvida

marvida

Member
The filtration properties of live rock has to do with the bacteria growing on the surface. So rock with more surface area is better. Usually the lighter the rock, the more surface area it has. so it's better. In most of our tanks this doesn't make a lot of difference as long as it's a decent quality calcium carbonate rock, choose it the same way you are now.
 
aysiana

aysiana

New Member

Originally posted by Salty Cheese
Laundry bleach on lr is a good thing?!:confused:
Please explain.
Well Im not saying its a good thing. But if you are concerned that your live rock may have something bad on it that may be infecting each new fish...better safe than sorry. My fish guy is the one who told me to do it. Of course I looked at him like he was nutts but Ive been dealing with him for about 5yrs and hes been in fish for 15-20yrs. Besides, he couldve just told me to throw them away and buy new ones from him, he had nothing to gain by having me bleach them. They will come "alive" again. I just bought 11lbs of fiji today to start seeding my "dead" rock.
 
salty cheese

salty cheese

Active Member
Hmm, intresting. I would just be worried that chlorine or other chemicals would leech out of the rock after you reintroduced it back in the tank. I hope it works out.:)
 
tsx

tsx

Member
The LFS said that the live rock was killing your fish?:confused:
Was the LR properly cured before u put it in the tank?
What were water parameters when the fish were dying?
Were they new fish? This sounds bizarre.
 
innsmouth

innsmouth

Member
he had nothing to gain by having me bleach them.
Probably not true. He gains by having you destroy your LR. Then you have to go back to the store and buy new LR to seed the dead stuff. You should have read about diseases and treatments on this website before listening to those fools. There are much better ways to treat diseases.
 
debbie g

debbie g

Member
The LFS didn't tell Aysiana that her live rock was killing the tank inhabitants, she told him her fish kept dieing and she wanted to pretty much sterilize the tank to kill any bad organisms that might be in there. Thats why he told her to bleach the rock. I was told the same thing years ago, (I had cyano from hell). I did it and as long as you are absolutely diligent about rinsing like crazy for a long time, it won't leach back into the tank. It is an extreme measure, but certainly the only way to insure that anything bad is killed. (of course along with everything good)
 
innsmouth

innsmouth

Member
Hypo treatment in a quarantine tank is a much better alternative to bleaching your LR no matter how you slice it and cyanobacteria can be reduced with quality water parameters. Water changes, manual removal and better flow will help.
 
R

reverai

Guest
Actually I would think the coral sand she had the bottom was causing the problem. If you overfeed the food drops to the coral sand and falls under the sand. Over time the food rots and causes big problems. I doubt it had anything to do with the live rock!
Good Luck..
Steve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top