LIVE ROCK BOILING~~~ does it work?
- Thread starter Hwang
- Start date
derekarch21
New member
a good way to get bristle worms out of your tank is find a nice solid rock, cut it in half, hollow out the middle, drill entry holes, put some krill in the middle, rubber band around the outside with s string attached, place in tank and pull out the next morning it will have all the bristle worms in there. As for he aptsia there are a few ways of getting rid of those. 1. peppermint shrimp always work amazing for me 2. there sa type of glueyou can jus squirt over the top of them and they get stuck and can no longer grow. I work at a reef warehouse and have heard of people trying to microwave and boil and they still come back. But really i just bought a full set up from a guy and the tank had aptasia all over it i brought home two peperment shrimp from work and now there is no aptasia. Hope this help
ROBONE20
Member
I bought 100lbs of live rock from a fellow reefer covered in aiptasia and loaded w/bristle worms (some too intimdating to pull out with tweezers). I tried keeping the LR alive, but messed up by putting it all in a small trash bin with saltwater. I let it set for a week without a powerhead and heater, everything ended up dying because of the high ammonia spike. I figured it was ok since I didn't want the pests, so I dumped the nasty water, rinsed with fresh water, scrubbed with a brush, then soaked in saltwater with high salinity for 30 minutes (more worms came out). Then I allowed to soak with normal saltwater for another week. Things kept dying...but I kept rinsing with fresh water, scrubbed with brush and soak with new saltwater. I did this for 2 weeks, now the smell is gone and so far no aiptasia or bristleworms. My only regret was the other stuff that was living on the rock, sponges, pods and othe bacteria, but it was a good trade off. I plan on buying some peppermint shrimp, and clean up crew to take care of the dead stuff on the rock and to maintain it too.
glextank
New member
just bought some liverock yesterday from a guy. he said he tried boiling his rock majano anemones, but it made the rock nasty. It turned green and was just disgusting. he also tried baking, but said the best thing to do was set it outside in the sun for 2 weeks. Bleaches it white and kills everything. Hth
glextank
New member
I think it's probably the best option, imo. When our tank had an aiptasia outbreak, we just cut the feedings and light way back, kalked the ones we could get at and waited it out. We had a GIANT bristleworm in a rock, and we figued out which hole it lived in, then took that rock out and did a freshwater dip til it came out. But thats just us, I know a lot of people like to start fresh, and if so, sunning seems like a good way to get there.
nano427
Member
check this out. 100% effective. just did it myself and couldn't be happier.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1587539
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1587539
ROBONE20
Member
After the first initial die off, I figured I didn't want to waste good saltwater since pests were dying anyways. So I soaked with fresh water about 5 days, then scrubbed and rinse using fresh water. The smell was soo bad I had to change the water again. There were alot of dead worms in the murky water. So I dipped in high salinity saltwater 30 minutes in case there were still live pests, and then soak with normal saltwater. It's working so far. I don't see any bristle worms, but I plan on just doing 20% water changes from here on out.
xtm
Active member
Just let them sit under the sun to dry out, but you'll have to leave them there for a month just to make sure everything dies. It will be a dry rock free of pests. The problem is that it may still have some crud embedded IN the rock. The best thing to do is cook your rocks. I submerge them in freshwater to let the phosphates/crud leach out. This will take months to complete but when you're done, you have a clean rock both inside and out that will not leach phosphates later on.
I let the rocks sit on a tub, submerged in freshwater. After 2 weeks the water will be brown and nasty - that's all the organic crud that's being released. You need to take this water out and replenish it. Do this about 5 more times until the water doesn't get brown anymore, then you have clean rocks.
You know how some newbies buy LR from the LFS, they throw it in their tank and 3 days later it's filled with green hair algae? It's the phosphates leaching from the rocks. This is why it's important to cook the rocks before using them in the display.
DO NOT boil or microwave them!!! Cooking simply means "letting it sit in clean water" to release the crud.
I let the rocks sit on a tub, submerged in freshwater. After 2 weeks the water will be brown and nasty - that's all the organic crud that's being released. You need to take this water out and replenish it. Do this about 5 more times until the water doesn't get brown anymore, then you have clean rocks.
You know how some newbies buy LR from the LFS, they throw it in their tank and 3 days later it's filled with green hair algae? It's the phosphates leaching from the rocks. This is why it's important to cook the rocks before using them in the display.
DO NOT boil or microwave them!!! Cooking simply means "letting it sit in clean water" to release the crud.
ROBONE20
Member
Well it was alot of work on my part, but it was worth it to get rid of those pests. I was pulling out worms that were at least 1ft long. Nasty! The reason why I kept at it was because the rocks were covered in purple coralline algae. The guy I bought the LR from had these rocks for at least 15 years. I didn't think those bristle worms would last the initial week of the ammonia spike but there were some remaining. When I soaked with freshwater the second week for 5 days I was still pulling out worms, but they were really weak. Freaked me out. I think I got all of them though, I'm glad I went through this cycle in a trash bin in my garage instead of in my tank inside the house. The smell was unbearable. It was funny too because I was cleaning them on my driveway and you can smell the water from down the street LOL. You can do that too where you bleach, rinse and dry them out. I just want to make sure I preserve the coralline and kill those pests without using expensive chems like aiptasia x and what not. Some people love these worms and prefer them to live in their reef. I just don't like the idea of a 1ft worm lurking in my tank.
RandyFolds
Reef Troll
You can guarantee that your house will smell like **** and the rock will blow apart from the steam, destroying your microwave and possibly blinding you...
Two words for you: biological control.
Set up the new tank with the appie infested rock and stock six peppermint shrimp and wait a month.
As far as bristleworms, getting rid of them is a fool's errand. They are by far the most valuable member of any CUC, and the chances of them tearing into coral after so much time is pretty darn unlikely. Get a coral banded shrimp to cull the population.
ROBONE20
Member
Ha...I guess he's sayin' I'm a fool.
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