White stuff on live rock....

[hoover86]

Well I've had my LR for a week now, not much is different then when I put it in but one thing has been catching me eye. My LFS showed me dark puplish spots on the rock when I bought it and told me it's coraline algae and to have it facing up to the light. I followed his directions and now those spots he pointed out keep getting like a white haze over them. I called them back and they asked if I could just wave it off with my hand by moving the water. I did this and it all waves off really easy and almost looks like when you have dead skin after a sun burn, it's really thin and my filter cleans it right up, but it just keeps coming right back. Is this bad? Should I be waiving it off or leave it? Thanks guys.

 

[brianrish]

What you see is just die-off on the rock. It is perfectly normal when you put new rock in a tank. It will stop after all of the dead stuff on the rock is gone.
Keep an eye on your ammonia levels as die-off can cause a spike which may kill fish if you have any in your tank yet.
To prevent this in the future, search for ways to "cure" live rock before adding it to your main tank. If you don't have fish or corals yet, then curing live rock in your main tank (which is basically what you are doing now) is actually a good way to cycle your tank.

 

[hoover86]

Ok cool. Yea I bought it cured but it had to travel quite a ways from the LFS (about 150 miles) and it is extremely cold outside right now, so I'm sure that didn't help at all. I don't have any fish or anything yet, just live rock, live sand, and there were 2 pretty big snails on the live rock when I brought it home. The snails seem fine, and my tank is getting green on the glass I'm assuming because the tank is cycling. Thanks for the advice!