Storing live rock

[YamahaF934]

If I am going to store live rock for a long time, what is needed besides flow and heat. Do they need light? How about water changes?

 

[senji]

how long is long maybe let it become dry dead rock easyer to store. all the micros will live deep in the rock so it wont totaly die best way to get rid of hitch hikers.

 

[Chichas01]

Supposedly one of the best ways to 'cook' rock is exactly what you have planned. Heat, flow and just top off to keep up with any evap. You don't need any light or water changes. Any bad algae will die off as it is eventually starved of light and food supply. Only other thing I would add would be a skimmer. I did this with some problem rock I had for about 4+ months and it was the best thing I ever did to kill off a bad batch of dino's and other algae.

 

[eartaker]

Just pull the rock out and store it dry. It is super easy to bring it back to life but just takes a little time. Im cooking rock right now in a 5 gallon bucket that I killed off with just a small heater and a power head. When you start it helps if you add in some stability to get the bacteria going. I'm 2 weeks in and all ammonia is gone and now waiting on nitrite to drop to 0 then I can put it in my tank.