Live Rock

[jjj1100]

Ok about 4 weeks ago I got in 350lbs. of live rock for my 300 gallon tank. Well it will be about 2 more weeks still till i get the 300 tank and have the live rock in garbage cans in the garage. Since then I have set up a small tank and threw in some of the live rock with powerheads and a heater in side my house.

This may be a dumb question, but are there supposed to be some critters or things that I should be seeing on the live rock or in the tank, or does that take a long time. There were no hitchhickers on the rock that were visable, and for the first week it smelled like a morgue in the garage.

Right now the water in the tank is about 3 weeks old, ammonia is 0, nitrate is about .3 or so.

 

[scrmbld33]

depending on the rock you may not find some of the bigger hitchikers, snails crabs etc, try searching the tank a hour after lights out with a red lens (you can look with white light but everything will scatter quickly) look for worms and pods, and maybe crabs

 

[LaloV.]

When I purchased my Live rock 6 days had to pass so I could see any pods, I tought it was all, but 3 months later a funny Xanthid crab appeared literally from the nothing.
Search at night. If you have sand in the tank where the rock is in, then look in the sand for life.

 

[jjj1100]

ok not to sound dumb, but the rock was shipped over night to an air port, from a company that lets the rock get througly rinsed over egg crate for a few hours so hitchhikers fall off. So if the hitchhickers didn't get washed away from the hose, then how would they survive the flight over?

 

[scrmbld33]

very likly, more will come with time, i got a hermit on my tonga that i never saw for 4/5 months, pods became more and more with time

 

[goda]

i had a snail outbreak 3 months after i put lr in my old tank ( 55 gallon)

 

[Scuba_Dave]

It depends upon the harvest method, ho wlong the rock was out of water & if it was allowed to dry before being shipped
No way to tell - takes time to find out