I bought a saltwater fish tank from a guy about 5 months ago. He had about 80 lbs of live rock in it and also live sand. I really had no place for it yet, so we just put the rock and sand in a few 5 gallon buckets, filled them with saltwater from the tank and sealed them. The buckets are now in my basement. I took the lid off one a day or two ago and it smelled like absolute hell(as expected.) The water had a thick film over it and there were a few bristleworms floating in there. My question is, is this rock good for anything anymore? I plan on starting up a 75-120 gallon tank and I'm wondering about the best way to cycle it. Should I just add all this rock at once along with some uncured rock from an LFS or what? Thanks in advance.
Stank live rock question
- Thread starter Haag13
- Start date
Its still usefull. You will have to decide for yourself coz we cant see it but if everything is dead which is what it sounds like then just rinse them off as good as you can even hose them off so that you get all the gunk you can out of it then just set it up in your tank with a abit of fresh cured or uncured LR and do a normal cycle. It will just take abit longer to look good. It will work fine though.
Thanks for the help guys!!! A couple more questions for you since you guys know your sh&t. I have a CPR CY192 wet/dry filter with built in skimmer that came with another tank and I was wondering if I should use it on my tank. I was thinking about mainly using it for a sump and taking out the bioballs. Will this skimmer be sufficient for a FOWLR tank? Also, I can't seem to figure out how the skimmer is supposed to work and I can't find directions online. Are you familiar with this model at all?
I finally found the directions for the wet/dry on the company's website. I'm still not sure how I want to filter this tank though. The tank will be around 90 gallons and will start as FOWLR but I'm sure after getting a better understanding of a saltwater tank I'll want to start adding a few soft corals and inverts eventually so I don't want to have to change my set-up too much to do it. Should I do a sump with refug. and a HOB with biowheel on top or a standard wet-dry filter or something else? Suggestions?
I would definitely stick with the wet/dry. That model says it will cover up to 100 gallons and if you add a sump and a refugium you will be off to a good start. If you add a HOB, you can actually remove too many trace elements and minerals needed for proper growth. You could run a HOB with extra bio-media or micron filter to help remove anything free floating.
What type of lighting do you plan on using? If you want to grow some types of SPS/LPS corals, you're going to need some good PC or MH bulbs to penetrate down to the bottom of a 90. If you start with a FOWLR tank, you could even add some mushrooms and green star polyps if you have lower levels of light.
Can you post some pics of the skimmer?
What type of lighting do you plan on using? If you want to grow some types of SPS/LPS corals, you're going to need some good PC or MH bulbs to penetrate down to the bottom of a 90. If you start with a FOWLR tank, you could even add some mushrooms and green star polyps if you have lower levels of light.
Can you post some pics of the skimmer?
I would do a wet dry with a sump incorporated. Get like a 30gallon long tank and make an elevated section with a spray bar for your fist chaber with some filter media or some bio balls. have it run through some baffles and into a good size section that has a deep sand bed or miracle mud. also put some Live rock rubble in there and some Macro algea, I like Chetomorpha but you can use several diff types if you would like. Make sure you have an ok light on the fuge part and that will prevent your brown algea growth. have it run through some more baffles into the last section where you can have a protien skimmer and your return pump. This is my favorite set up because in incorporates it all into a tighty little set up that should fit well in your stand.
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll post some pictures of the sump with skimmer built in tomorrow. The skimmer doesn't look very good though so I may end up just upgrading. I'll have to wait and see. I'll be getting the tank tomorrow. I've narrowed it down to either a 72g bowfront or a 92g corner style. Most likely it will be the 72 bow though. I had pretty much decided on using a 4 bulb 48" HO T5 light by nova extreme but now I'm not so sure. I've read that for HO T5 to really be effective, each bulb needs its own reflector and I think the fixture I was looking at just has all the bulbs in one big parabolic reflector. Will that be okay if I decide to do some softies or an anemone down the road? I'm pretty sure I won't ever be doing SPS but I could see possibly LPS at some point. Also I've read that actinic really isn't that helpful for inverts and since the fixture comes with 2 actinic bulbs and 2 10000K bulbs should I switch some out? Maybe 3 10000K and 1 actinic, or all 10000K? What does anyone think?