Gifted live rock

[Reaper_Six_Four]

Hi everyone,

I was given a good amount of live rock. I currently have a well established tank. My question is this. How can I process this rock to ensure I’m not introducing any hitchhikers?

Thank you

 

[MoshJosh]

Hi everyone,

I was given a good amount of live rock. I currently have a well established tank. My question is this. How can I process this rock to ensure I’m not introducing any hitchhikers?

Thank you

Do you need to introduce it? If you already have an established tank I would probably not introduce it. . . ?

That said, safest bet is to set up a completely different systems, get some fish and corals in there. . . probably observe it for a few years

 

[fishywishy]

Hi everyone,

I was given a good amount of live rock. I currently have a well established tank. My question is this. How can I process this rock to ensure I’m not introducing any hitchhikers?

Thank you

There’s a few things you can do

you can put it in a separate tank or tub and use a red light at night and traps to remove any unwanted critters.

You can do a hypo salinity dip which should take some most critters but if that doesn’t work you can do a club soda dip.

If you just want the biodiversity of your rock you can just put it in your sump and you won’t have any pest.

As a last resort option if you have a bunch of unwanted critters that you can’t remove but you still want to put the rock in your tank, you can raise the ammonia on the rock really high and kill most of the critters and still be left with live rock.

You can also just put it in a tub with some bleach and kill all of rock and be left with a bunch of nice dead pieces of rock, Which is probably your best bet because hitchhikers can be a real pain if they get in.

 

[ilikefish69]

Hi everyone,

I was given a good amount of live rock. I currently have a well established tank. My question is this. How can I process this rock to ensure I’m not introducing any hitchhikers?

Thank you

what is reason behind introducing more rock to a well established tank ? is it going in the display or the sump ? for hitch hikers that are large enough to stay in the sump, then they will stay in the sump. if you put rock with aiptasia majano vermitid or something small then it will go from sump to display in no time . if you already have a good mix of the pests as i do then i would just temp acclimate it (lol) and throw it in , YOLO

if youve established a reef tank without pests and do not need more filtration then set up another tank and use the rock maybe or just pass on the favor to the next person who is starting tank with all dry rock . being worried about hitchhikers leads me to believe you are not fighting with any currently and putting in some strangers rock is great way to start an unwanted battle

 

[Reaper_Six_Four]

There’s a few things you can do

you can put it in a separate tank or tub and use a red light at night and traps to remove any unwanted critters.

You can do a hypo salinity dip which should take out most critters but if that doesn’t work you can do a club soda dip.

If you just want the biodiversity of your rock you can just put it in your sump and you won’t have any pest.

As a last resort option if you have a bunch of unwanted critters that you can’t remove you can raise the ammonia on the rock really high and kill most of the critters and still be left with live rock.

what is reason behind introducing more rock to a well established tank ? is it going in the display or the sump ? for hitch hikers that are large enough to stay in the sump, then they will stay in the sump. if you put rock with aiptasia majano vermitid or something small then it will go from sump to display in no time . if you already have a good mix of the pests as i do then i would just temp acclimate it (lol) and throw it in , YOLO

if youve established a reef tank without pests and do not need more filtration then set up another tank and use the rock maybe or just pass on the favor to the next person who is starting tank with all dry rock . being worried about hitchhikers leads me to believe you are not fighting with any currently and putting in some strangers rock is great way to start an unwanted battle

Yeah, I might just pass on putting it in. I wanted to add more to my aquacape but the risk isn’t worth the reward I suppose.