LR/LS question

[AndyL]

Hey folks,

 

My first SW attempt is finally appearing to be going somewhere. :woot: May long weekend I'll be picking up my live rock and live sand.

 

There is a slight glitch in the plans, I'll probably be buying it sunday afternoon. Monday we'll be driving, arriving in town late monday night. I start work at 6am... In other words, I'm not going to be able to set up the tank until tuesday night. Thats 2 days in transit...

 

What will I need to do in order to keep everything alive? I was thinking our big coleman cooler 1/3 full of saltwater would keep everything nice and wet. I have heat packs at my disposal to keep things warm until I get home... Will that be enough?

 

Secondary question, if I buy cured live rock; do I still need cycling time? I ask because the livestock I can get down in calgary is 10,000% better than what I can get here. I think I know the answer to this ("Don't do it") But I figured I'd ask.

 

Thanks everyone,

 

Andy

[Masoch]

[rank amateur posting, but WTH]

 

The longer your rock is out of an aquarium (or ocean), the more die-off there will be on the rock and the more intense and/or longer the cycling will be in your tank once you put the rock in. As I understand it, most of our LR is shipped wrapped up in wet newspapers ... and the rock can take several days (weeks?) to reach our distributors. So, yes, LR can cope with being out of an aquarium (or the sea), but it means that you won't be able to add fish as fast as you could if you had used rock fresh from your LFS's tank.

 

But ... while your tank can cope with the die-off ... you also stand to lose bio-diversity. Sure, the coralline algae and the bacteria will still be there ... but you'll have less chance for any interesting hitchhikers (corals, worms, sponges ...).

 

You could try mail order for your LR and livestock -- J&L . They try for same day delivery (by plane) to minimize stress / die-off, so that might be a decent way to do things.

 

And, for live sand, you can always try seeding your sand bed with that scunge off the bottom of a LR curing tank -- most LFSs will give it away (or change a pittance for it) for their customers. Unless they just filled their tanks :*(

 

Good luck!

[HuBu]

if your LR is cured, there will still be some cycling but it will just be a short one. as for driving around with LR, even tho its in a container with sea water, there is no circulation within it and die off will start. so when you put it into your tank, there is going to be a spike. might take longer to cycle but hey the LR will definitely make your cycling faster than cycling with base rock. what mas said about the shipping of rock with water newspaper on it is true. thats just to keep it moist. just give it time and test your water before putting anything in. as you already know, you need a lot of patience with this hobby.