Did I Kill My Live Rock

[Partner-is-an-a]

Hello,
I read on a few sites that you could take the live rock out and soak it in tap water, and successfully bristle worms. I was excited to learn that it works. I eliminated about ten bristle worms. My question is what happens to the rock? Does this destroy it ? because you see my name is what my girl now refers to me as. thanks for any help

 

[Grey Legion]

Sounds like you may have done more harm than good..

If you still have any "un-tap-water soaked" pieces they will re-seed the soaked pieces.

Make sure to soak them in R/O water before placing them back into you tank or some pre-mixed salt water..

best of luck

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF!! Hope you enjoy it here As for your live rock, it is not necessarily the best thing to do placing live rock in freshwater. Some people, to get rid of pest like bristle worms will pour club soda or tonic water over the rock, but that too may possibly cause some die off, but couldn't say to what extent. As already suggested, if you have some other rock that wasn't rinsed off in tap water, you could use that to seed the other rock with pods etc, but all in all, I couldn't say to what degree you may have possibly killed off the rock. How long did you allow it to sit?

 

[diablo]

moral is your rock might have lost alot of bacteria but it will come back to life with out too many problems... if things are things are dead inside a re cure process might have to be done... test for ammonia... and your rock will come back so tell your other your rock is fine

 

[WA coral]

diablo is right I just killed off about 100 lbs that had pests etc. and am now recuring it . I still have other rock that is still live and it will reseed my dead rock, will take a little while but nothing devistating or worth gettin rid of the rock for. All of the live rock comes in dry shipping when it arrives here so it has to be cured of all of the die off anyway, pretty much the same thing.

 

[returnofsid]

I'd say that yes, you most likely killed it...but it doesn't take much to rejuvinate it. If you have life sand in your tank, or more live rock, it'll soon be alive again. You may want to give it a light brushing with a stiff toothbrush to get any possible dying material off of it before putting it back in your tank though. Is there a specific reason you wanted to kill your bristleworms? You say you killed off about 10 of them. Of the hundreds of species of bristleworms, only a couple are actually harmful and the rest are quite beneficial. The harmful ones are actually quite uncommon also. If your tank has been established long, I'm sure you have WAY more than 10 in it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out I have hundreds in mine. I can always look in my refugium and see them. I even see them in a tank that I never feed. It's just a QT tank with a ball of Chaeto in it, some live rock and live sand. It never gets fed and I still see several bristleworms whenever looking in it. It's also loaded with pods :0).

 

[Krish]

I forgot to add that "die-off" causes ammonia to be produced and as a result, it causes the beneficial bacteria to populate the rock to break it down into nitrite and then as a result another bacteria is produced that will also populate your rock to break that down into nitrate and once that is produced (nitrate) another bacteria will populate the rock to break that down so in any event, your rock, in no time, will be teaming with all the necessary bacteria you'd need for biological filtration and denitrification. You don't have to add any other rock or sand in there to seed it as as it only takes the production of ammonia for the cycle to begin which will be provided by any die-off resulting from exposing the rock to freshwater. Your main loss I think will be any other life on there like pods etc, but beneficial bacteria will populate that rock in no time so no worries.

 

[Partner-is-an-a]

Thank's everyone who replied. I have taken the advice and my tank has about 1 inch live sand and two iches of beach sand base in a 90 gallon tank and only about 50lbs of live rock. I identified the worms to be fireworms, and from what I read they are predators. So far I think they killed of my Crocea clam, and maybe my mandarin ?