How to use old live rock

[bemerritt]

About a month or so I received some live rock from a fellow reefer. Not knowing what exactly the status of his tank was critter-wise, i put the small, no bigger than a baseball, rocks in a 5 gallon bucket on the side of my house. It was filled with tank water, but half of it has evaporated.

Now, I want to use the rock to attach corals to and place in my tank. My tank is a very established 200 gallon tank with lots of live rock, sand and I'm even running biopellets.

What is the proper method of using these rocks? Should i slowly introduce them into my sup for a while first? is there a good way to clean them first to make sure no unwanted hitchikers make their way in?

all advice is welcome! thanks.

 

[nmotz]

You might try testing the water in the 5 gal bucket to make sure there isn't a lot of die off that could create a mini cycle and ammonia spike. Otherwise, I'd definitely start with them in the sump so you can observe what's going on with them.