Can You Revive Dead Live Rock?

[deegang]

Hi folks,

decided to setup a nano reef tank. I used to keep marine fish only, about four years ago but gave my setup away when moving house.

Recently my buddy whom i gave the setup to decided to remove all the live rock, put it in a plastic box, no water and out in his garden.

I have purchasd the nano-cube 24g system and am in the process of doing the test run for leaks etc.

I have also taken the box of now dead live rock back from my friend and was wondering if i mixed it with new live rock in my tank, would it come alive again and if so how long should this take?

Also what percentage of dead/live rock should i combine.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Gary

 

[k.o.d]

The dead live rock will re-seed itself if you put it with existing live rock

My worry would be that the dead live rock would need to be very thoroughly cleaned before putting in your tank.

When LFS receive live rock they have to 'cure' it by washing all the dead stuff off, don't know if you have ever seen any non cured rock but it stinks!!!!!!

Steve

 

[deegang]

Yeah my lfs advised that my old rock should be boiled, then scrubbed and used as base rock with a mixture of live sand and new live rock.

I just wanted a second opinion to make sure i was going in the right direction.

Thanks

Gary

 

[Adrinal]

We use muratic acid to solve the sponge and algae off. This is serious stuff so read up on saftey before using it. Then in a seperate bin with a skimmer and good flow we re cure the rock. We do add rock from established systems because we want critters to repopulate the rock.

You will never get the deversity as good fresh stuff from the ocean, but really we care about the pods and bacteria the most (bacteria = filter, pod spwan = coral food).

 

[Musho3210]

use all your base rock and get a pound or two of the highest quality uncured live rock you can find.

 

[steelhealr]

If you wanted to, you could 'recure' your old LR which would be a longer process...that is, throw it in with uncured and cure them together in the tank. Or...as above...boil it..clean it..and combine it with LR and LS. I'm not sure why some people are telling you to use it as 'base' rock. I think of that more like Atlantic base rock. The old stuff will simply reseed and eventually get covered with coralline. Have fun. SH

 

[deegang]

Cheers guys.

Just added 7kg of fiji premium live rock, removed the dead stuff just now as there is not a lot of space at the moment.

Going to keep an eye on it during the cycle process and see how it goes.

Maybe add some of the dead stuff later if needed.

Gary