Breaking down the tank for summer

[jfbhd4]

I'm down here in columbia and coming home for the summer. The tank has got to come down...

I have a friend holding on to my corals for a few months and plan on selling my fish back to a store for (hopefully) a promise (gift cert) of the same types of fish when I get back. (Mine are way bigger than the ones I will be getting later. Sounds fair to me)

What should I do with my rock? I plan on storing my stuff in a future roomate's house, so it would probably stink too bad if I just took it out of the tank and put it in a bucket.
It will obviously die if out of water, but will it come back if I put it in my tank next year when I set it up again?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[breutus]

sorry to hear things gotta go for now

As far as the live rock it might be better to sell some of it to someone who can use it and then just keep some as base rock when you reset up the tank. I had about twenty pounds that had only been outta water for about 5 months and it has been in the tank now for close to a year and is just finally starting to look pretty normal again, and i have still yet to see any peanut worms in those rocks at night. but if you do decide to keep any of it rinse it out real well and maybe keep the bucket coverd after it's completely dry, thats what i did and it never stank really, just at first when it was still wet, but after like a week it was fine.

Good luck on everything.

 

[Reefer Wannabe]

Can you keep it in a couple of trashcans in the basement or something with saltwater and a powerhead?

Or...sell it off. You'd probably get $3/pound. Then when the time comes to set it back up, another reefer will be selling theirs for $3/pound, and you'll be fine.

 

[DrBDC]

Can't you bring it home with you? Being that it takes more than a year for a tank to even really be just barely be starting to become established, if I had to take it down and start over every 9 months I'd wait or go fish only. A power inverter running a powerhead in a tub with the rock and a lowered water level in the tank with the sand and another powerhead on the inverter will let you go coast to coast in a car.

 

[jfbhd4]

I may try to see if I could sell it back to one of the stores, I don't think I can bring it all home, it will be a bigger hassle than I want to deal with.
If I put saltwater in a trash can with the rock, and shove a powerhead in there, and let it run for 3 months, will all the water evaporate by then?
Maybe if I cover it...then does it need light to live...?

 

[jfbhd4]

eeh...now that I think about it, i could probably bring it home and stick it in a trash can with water in my basement...
Do I need to ever change that water?
Do I need to add supps?
Does it need light?

 

[inwall75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9808506#post9808506 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jfbhd4
eeh...now that I think about it, i could probably bring it home and stick it in a trash can with water in my basement...
Do I need to ever change that water?
Do I need to add supps?
Does it need light?

You want the water to be moving so bring home some powerheads too.

If you do change that water a couple of times over the summer, you'll remove some of the stored up nutrients.

Either way, whether you change water or not, it's not likely that supplements are going to be a big issue.

You don't need light. You're going to lose some coralline but that's not a big deal anyway. The stupid stuff grows back and you can't slow it down and AAAAGGGHHH, AAAAGGGGHHHH, AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!! Can you tell that I'm sick of coralline algae????