setting up a tank that was moved, please help!!

[jcarroll]

Hello everyone! It's been a LONG time since I've been on here and enjoyed the hobby!! We moved back to Indiana from Denver and I wasn't able to set up the tank for a total of 9 months now. This whole time, I've had my sand and my rocks in water left over from when the tank was set up in Denver. Here are my questions:
1. My tank in Denver had green algae growing. It was because my water wasn't good enough quality as I thought. I'm setting it up now with all RO water I bought. Will this possibly solve the problem if I'm still using the same sand and live rock?
2. My live rock is probably dead, but possibly not since they don't require oxegenated water to stay alive. As long as it's been, 9 months, what do I need to do to get the rocks ready for the tank and is it a good idea to just put it in like it is now to help the cycle along?
Any input on this situation is greatly appreciated!! I wanted to set up the tank right when we got back, but we were staying in a place temporarily and I didn't want to do all of the work just to have to tear it down and move it again.

 

[jcarroll]

Noone has any advice for me?

 

[jcarroll]

I don't know if it helps at all, but the rocks have been sealed in 5 gallon buckets full of saltwater until today and they smell extremely bad like the worst rotten eggs you've ever come by!! YUCK!!

 

[turningtim]

Your best bet is to clean everything. Just don't know what has grown in those buckets for such a long time. I would scrub the rock down and then sun dry it. The sand I would rinse and then sun dry it. Rinse the tank with a solution of white vinegar and water. that will get all the dried nasties out of there.
Green algea could be a sign of high trates and or phosphate. Thats the other thing you will have to look at is your test kits to see if they're still good.
What size tank, lighting and filters?
I would just start over, better safe then sorry and once its all together it will be a pain to fix it.
HTH
JMO
Tim

 

[kynan]

Your live rock is dead rock. If it's safe to pt in your tank it should have a sweet smell. I agree with the previous poster, scrub it and let it air/sun dry. You need to view this stuff as dead, use it as base or semi-base rock, grab some new LR and hope that intime lots of good stuff migrates from the new to the old.
The other thing you could do, even safer, is clean, sun dry it, then cylcle it in a garbage can (new) for three weeks with a powerhead and SW to really clean it out.