catastrophic crash...

[baneq]

so i got back from korea not to long ago and return to a disaster. My lovely wife who wanted nothing more than to help maintain my tank, had inadvertantly caused my heater in my sump to explode, so doing what she could, she unplugged everything and waited till i got home...a month later. so now im in the midst of getting everything back on track. the major problem im facing now is that all the cool little critters on my once live rock have ceased to be.
which brings me to my question, can i safely introduce new LR from the Rock Store (ocean), without causing my tank to cycle again.
the inverts took the big hit and only one crab survived, but the fish all seemed to handle the dark, stagnant, super saline environment without any signs of damage, so id like to keep em around a bit longer.

any other advice for handling this would be helpful too

thanks much

 

[vest0830]

Slowly add in more rock.

Go and get a decent size air supply (those humming little fresh water pumps) and just run the air line into the tank to at least get a little current in the tank and oxygen exchange going on...

get one from the PX. Accually....I might have one that you can borrow...lemme take a look this evening. I cant remeber if we tossed them when we moved or not. I think I kept them around for emergency purposes....such as this one. :lol:

 

[baneq]

pretty much everything is back online, you think i still need more oxygen though?

 

[vest0830]

If your poweheads are flowing, you should be fine...something to agitee the surface.

 

[jeffb3t]

Ouch! As vest said add rock slowly and make sure that it is cured and not stuff that they just got in.

 

[vest0830]

I've added large peices striaght from a snorkel trip. I just dont induce a ton of rock at one time...if that makes any sense....

 

[TheDeparted]

not a good idea to add LR from the ocean.. ive done this in the past with bad results. stuff in the LR died in the movement from the ocean to the tank, no matter what you do to avoid this.. you will probably get a huge algae bloom that just wont go away.

 

[vest0830]

I still think it was your synthetic water man.
Come see my tank, its 100% rock from the ocean...I have been slacking big time on maintaining my tank these past few months, and it still looks great. If I could keep my sand bed in place, I would be much happier, but for the most part, the tank is doing great.