Okay, I picked up about 40ish pounds of live rock in a trade last night. It's pretty nice looking Tonga rock. It had been stored in saltwater in a couple coolers with no circulation. I don't know how long it was stored in that way but I don't think it was very long. In looking closely at some of the rock, I've seen a couple live Peanut Worms. I'm also seeing quite a few feather duster tubes and have spotted a couple bristle worms and quite a few copopods crawling around o it. About 3/4 of it has good coraline coverage. When I got it home, I emptied out off of the old water, mixed up about 15 gallons of fresh saltwater and have it in a garbage can with a powerhead circulating. Instead of wasting valuable RO/DI water...lol, I mixed up the fresh SW using tap water. I now see this may have been a mistake...lol. Just for kicks, I decided to test the water this morning. Nitrates are at about 40 ppm. This is actually a lot higher than my tap water though, which is at about 20 ppm. So, I'm obviously getting existing nitrates from the rock.
Any suggestions on how to treat this rock before adding to any of my tanks? I've looked over each and every piece of rock quite carefully and so far, I've seen no bad pests, although that doesn't really mean anything at all. As I said, there's pretty good coraline growth, some good critters and maybe a little turf or hair algae growth that I'll attack with a toothbrush.
Should I dump out the SW and make up a fresh batch using RO/DI water? It's really not a big deal to do that, last night I just decided that since I only had about 15 gallons of RO/DI water and planned a couple water changes over this weekend, that I'd use tap water. I can easily hook up my RO unit and fill up the can. If I do a water change in the rock, I'll also brush off the algae and swish the rock out very well in the old water before placing it in the new. Eventually this rock is going to add to my display tanks and some smaller pieces will go in my fuge. I'd like any and all suggestions before making the addition though!! Thanks all!!
Any suggestions on how to treat this rock before adding to any of my tanks? I've looked over each and every piece of rock quite carefully and so far, I've seen no bad pests, although that doesn't really mean anything at all. As I said, there's pretty good coraline growth, some good critters and maybe a little turf or hair algae growth that I'll attack with a toothbrush.
Should I dump out the SW and make up a fresh batch using RO/DI water? It's really not a big deal to do that, last night I just decided that since I only had about 15 gallons of RO/DI water and planned a couple water changes over this weekend, that I'd use tap water. I can easily hook up my RO unit and fill up the can. If I do a water change in the rock, I'll also brush off the algae and swish the rock out very well in the old water before placing it in the new. Eventually this rock is going to add to my display tanks and some smaller pieces will go in my fuge. I'd like any and all suggestions before making the addition though!! Thanks all!!
) anyway, you would never catch me eating anything from the water and now I handle fish food every day!
