Live Rock Curing Process

[Prezpreston]

Hey guys,

 

Got some live rock from KP aquatics for added biodiversity to aid in my ongoing battle with Dinos.
 

Its been curing now for almost 3 weeks and my ammonia readings have been hovering around .25 / .50 for the past week. After doing another 50% water change today, I’m hovering around .25 (potentially less). 

 

The rocks came covered with coralline, but my curing bin has not had a light on it, and I’ve definitely been seeing coralline recession. 
 

As my ammonia readings are pretty low, can I just toss my live rock into the tank and remove my current rock in the tank, and  count on what biological filtration I have to take care of the ammonia?

 

Or do I need to wait until the ammonia has completely vanished before I replace it?

[Prezpreston]

Bumping if anyone might be able to chime in!

[jservedio]

If you have a newish nano, I would wait for it to be fully cycled, but I'd toss a light on there ASAP to save as much of the photosynthetic life on the rock. Even a couple 5000K floodlight bulbs from Home Depot for about $10 is better than nothing if you don't have an old fixture laying around.

 

If you have a mature tank that can handle the bioload from the die off, you could add one rock at a time every few days. However, that is putting ammonia in your tank, and if you aren't absolutely sure your tank can handle it, don't risk it.

 

Dinos can be easily managed for a couple of weeks while everything cycles. What size tank, what kind of rock did you start with, when was it established, and what is your current bioload?

[Prezpreston]

7 minutes ago, jservedio said:

If you have a newish nano, I would wait for it to be fully cycled, but I'd toss a light on there ASAP to save as much of the photosynthetic life on the rock. Even a couple 5000K floodlight bulbs from Home Depot for about $10 is better than nothing if you don't have an old fixture laying around.

 

If you have a mature tank that can handle the bioload from the die off, you could add one rock at a time every few days. However, that is putting ammonia in your tank, and if you aren't absolutely sure your tank can handle it, don't risk it.

 

Dinos can be easily managed for a couple of weeks while everything cycles. What size tank, what kind of rock did you start with, when was it established, and what is your current bioload?

Hi jservedio! Appreciate that - I may have to do that, I'm worried that the die off is coming from the photosynthetic organisms dying, and I'm sort of stuck in a catch-22.

 

I've had the dino outbreak unfortunately for about a month a half now. My running theory (after getting tons of feedback from mcaroll and clown) is that after the previous owner put the tank in a hypersalinity swing, all of the beneficial bacteria that had been built up to that point (it was a year old when he put it into hypersalinity for around a month) were killed off. Tank is a JBJ 12.5 gallon, current bioload is 1 clown, 1 galaxea, 2 zoas, 1 RFA, 1 hammer, 1 hermit, 5 dwarf planaxis, 2 astreas, 4 nassarius vibex, bristleworms.  At this point, the tank is close to 1 and a half years old (approaching 6 months since the hypersalinity swing).

 

Currently, I've kept the dry rock in the tank that the owner put in. The owner also put in live sand at the start of this. It's not a new tank by any means, so I do think that my tank could potentially handle one rock added every few days, but with the bacteria potentially thrown out of wack with the hypersalinity swing I'm a little worried about the ammonia being too much (but with 12.5 lbs of live rock in a 12.5 gallon giving off .50 ammonia readings, maybe my tank can handle that?)

[jservedio]

A single young clownfish isn't going to be contributing a large amount of ammonia to your tank, so I wouldn't trust that your tank can handle whatever amount of ammonia the new live rock is going to be giving off.

 

Definitely go to HD or Lowe's tonight and grab two 5,000K floodlight bulbs and two clip-on aluminum reflector/base (they are like $5/ea) and try and stem the die off of the photosynthetic life on your live rock, do a big water change on your curing bin, make sure you have good flow in there, and give it a week to see where you stand. It shouldn't be more than $20 for everything - get the most powerful bulbs they have - they normally have 150w equivalent LED floodlights in 2-packs for like $10. If you can't fit 2 reflectors over the curing bucket/tank just get one - it's better than nothing.

 

One more week of Dinos isn't going to be a big deal - it's just extra work. In the mean time, you can try and ID your species of Dino if you haven't already (to see if a UV sterilizer would work on it) and work on getting your nutrients up.

[Prezpreston]

37 minutes ago, jservedio said:

A single young clownfish isn't going to be contributing a large amount of ammonia to your tank, so I wouldn't trust that your tank can handle whatever amount of ammonia the new live rock is going to be giving off.

 

Definitely go to HD or Lowe's tonight and grab two 5,000K floodlight bulbs and two clip-on aluminum reflector/base (they are like $5/ea) and try and stem the die off of the photosynthetic life on your live rock, do a big water change on your curing bin, make sure you have good flow in there, and give it a week to see where you stand. It shouldn't be more than $20 for everything - get the most powerful bulbs they have - they normally have 150w equivalent LED floodlights in 2-packs for like $10. If you can't fit 2 reflectors over the curing bucket/tank just get one - it's better than nothing.

 

One more week of Dinos isn't going to be a big deal - it's just extra work. In the mean time, you can try and ID your species of Dino if you haven't already (to see if a UV sterilizer would work on it) and work on getting your nutrients up.

Awesome, thanks jservedio! I'm going to pick those up now.

 

After identifying them under a microscope, I thought I had coolia or prorocentrum, and therefore I got a UV sterilizer green machine, but I haven't really noticed a huge impact on the population.

 

Picked up those 5k LED floodlights (had to get heat lamp covers instead of reflectors because they didn't have any, but the coverage from those two lights on their own is perfect anyways). Thanks again!!

[AquaVaj]

Did you do the 10% WC everyday for the first 3 days? I did that and a 50% every week after and after 3 weeks they were good to go. I put a fw light on the last week cause I was getting a lot of coraline and color loss despite the risk of getting algae.

[Prezpreston]

On 6/18/2020 at 11:56 PM, AquaVaj said:

Did you do the 10% WC everyday for the first 3 days? I did that and a 50% every week after and after 3 weeks they were good to go. I put a fw light on the last week cause I was getting a lot of coraline and color loss despite the risk of getting algae.

Alll of this - I was doing a straight 50% water change for 3 days in a row, and then 50% every other day for the next week. I had a lot of die off of the coralline because I didn't put any lights on it as well - luckily I halted that towards the end of the third week when I put lights on it upon the advice of jservedio.

 

As of now, I made the change yesterday when all the dinos were attached to my old rock towards the evening. I'm seeing some dinos already starting to come back, so I'm picking up a canister filter and putting a micron filter sock in it upon the advice of mccaroll.

 

Had a Green Killing Machine Internal 9 Watt UV Sterilizer with Power Head and unfortunately saw little to no impact on my dino populations (even though I'm almost positive I have coolia or prorocentrum as the rock populations really disappear at night, although there are some that stay on the sand).

[mcarroll]

Any chance the bulb in the UB is past it's prime?   My guess is 6 months at the dosage levels needed for dino's...unless the maker specifically claims otherwise.

[Prezpreston]

12 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Any chance the bulb in the UB is past it's prime?   My guess is 6 months at the dosage levels needed for dino's...unless the maker specifically claims otherwise.

Eh, not sure - I bought the UV sterilizer off Amazon, so maybe the sterilizer had been sitting on the shelf for a while in an Amazon warehouse?

 

And sorry mcarroll - not quite understanding the second part of your post!

[mcarroll]

UV only goes bad with usage, not just sitting on the shelf.  👍

 

Just meant that 6 months of usage time is one common benchmark for when bulbs need to be replaced.  Not quite universal, so hopefully the box or manual yours came with says what the useful life is.

 

[DSA65PRO]

Can you check the outside of the glass tube in you UV? Typically the Bulb will be on the inside. If there is any growth of anything on the tube, the bulb is not working or your flow is too high.