buying liverock from other tanks, can you dip?

[james1990]

Just picked up some LR from my LFS and member "nyprdr" (thanks for hooking me up bro) and was wondering about any pests/unwanted things living in them. Could I use Coral Rx? or would it not be able to be washed out and poison my new tank?

 

[duke62]

dont do what me and many other reefers has done. dry those rocks out. if i had to do it all over again i would dry all the rocks i got from others and dry out completely. i have got most of my unwanted tank inhabitants from getting rocks from peoples tanks.from aiptasia,nasty palys and shroms to asterina you name it it showed up from the rocks

 

[yogi]

dont do what me and many other reefers has done. dry those rocks out. if i had to do it all over again i would dry all the rocks i got from others and dry out completely. i have got most of my unwanted tank inhabitants from getting rocks from peoples tanks.from aiptasia,nasty palys and shroms to asterina you name it it showed up from the rocks

+1. I have an aiptasia farm because of that.
Frags anyone?

 

[james1990]

doesnt that go against the point of getting liverock to begin with? oh man what to do

 

[JonnyJ]

Seriously there is almost no way to completely block out some pests. I started with dry rock and have aiptasia. I dip and fresh water dip everything. - aiptasia/pests come unnoticible on frags all the times. You could qt and lower the risk of adding pests, but a spore can still make its way in. As I have experienced.

I also had phosphate problems for months with the dry rock. I ran gfo and rectified it.

I would always choose live rock over dry. So much more diversity and I can always see a positive in stability with established rock. (bio load)

Cooking/drying the rock isn't a bad thing depending if u have the time or space. But I know surface algae/spores can still return unless you use some sort of acid.

I would just wait to buy some liverock from a healthy and good system that a member can vouch for - what shows up months later may be uncontrollable.

Buy what you like and go from there.

 

[thirty5]

I have to agree. it is bad enough putting frags in your tank from other tanks. But Rock is much different since there are so many places to hide in it.

I am a fan of getting brand new rock and just curing/cycling it myself

TIME TIME TIME, you need TIME in this hobby.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Hi Jim

Whenever you buy live rock it's a crap shoot. I do agree if your going to boil it what is the point of buying live rock. You could dip the rock in Coral RX and it would get rid of the crabs, flatworms,etc, you will also kill any beneficial pods. The biggest problem is the Aiptasia. I would let the new rocks sit in a tub or tank of salt water and watch it for a couple of days. If no aiptasia comes out your good. If you see aiptasia you can clean it up. The bottom line is we are always going to encounter pests in this hobby, I have gotten aiptasia from a piece of coral I added because it didn't come out for two days. Control is the key in my opinion. Hell, if I didn't have pests to fight I'd be bored.JK

 

[loneracer05]

Don't worry about it.just drop afew peppermint shrimp in and call it a day....longislandandy gives sound advice.can't avoid pests with out going to great lengths and even then there little to no guarantee.the benifits of established lr outweigh the potential pests.

 

[james1990]

thanks fellas, and thanks Andy, not sure if the guys told you but i had to rip that LR out of rich's hands that you guys had in the red sea 30cube! it was FULL of coralline, I had to take a few pieces!

I have it all in a bucket with a tiny heater, powerhead, and under a par38 full spec i had laying around. Im looking into the bucket now and then to see if anything pops up, so far just some xenia. what am I looking for exactly? lol

 

[noelskii]

did the person you got it from have any pests/nuisance algae in his tank?

 

[nyprdr]

nope( he got some from me).. no pests in my tank as of yet.. its only been running for 6 months there might be a bristle worm or 2 but that's it.. but I feel I've just been lucky so far.. I expect pests sooner or later.. figured it's part of the game

 

[marrone]

There are many pests that you can get from using LR from someone tank, most of which have been listed, but one that wasn't was ich. This is a big problem and you really need to be careful before you place the LR directly into you tank. Many of a tank has been infected with ich this way, leading in a lot of case to wipe out. It's better to either dry the LR out or QT for a couple of months.