Hey all! I'm new here and just wanted to post a few things that I am working on and possibly obtain some feedback. I have been in the aquarium hobby for 7+ years for both fresh and salty. About 2 years ago I had a problem with my reef so I took it down and adopted all my babies to friends that I swapped corals with. Now that I've had this long break I am ready to start it up again. I've been researching every possible aspect and am taking this very slowly and making sure everything is right. When I shut down my reef I kept my live rock after all corals were given away. I boiled it to kill everything off and then let it sit out in the sun for over a week. Afterwards I stored all the rock in sealed buckets and kept it in a safe place. (25+lbs) When I decided I wanted to do this again I pulled out the rock and gave it a rinse before setting it up in a 55 gal tank. I know it was pointless but to save money without using salt I filled the aquarium up with RO water in attempt to leech any nitrates or phosphates that could have possibly remained on the live rock.
After about four days I noticed that the water in the tank had turned a tint of yellow. I wasn't sure if that was normal so I did a complete RO water change and it's been about 3 days. It seems to not be as bad now. Maybe it was traces of dead things still inside the rock idk. Anyways, today I am switching the tank over to salt to start the cycling process. I was thinking about just putting a raw shrimp in there to start it off with and some Bio Spira.
Does anyone have suggestions as to using old live rock? I have researched and researched and I believe I'm going about this correctly but input is always a good thing. I'm hoping that in about a month or two I can finally purchase a pair of Black Saddleback Clowns.
After about four days I noticed that the water in the tank had turned a tint of yellow. I wasn't sure if that was normal so I did a complete RO water change and it's been about 3 days. It seems to not be as bad now. Maybe it was traces of dead things still inside the rock idk. Anyways, today I am switching the tank over to salt to start the cycling process. I was thinking about just putting a raw shrimp in there to start it off with and some Bio Spira.
Does anyone have suggestions as to using old live rock? I have researched and researched and I believe I'm going about this correctly but input is always a good thing. I'm hoping that in about a month or two I can finally purchase a pair of Black Saddleback Clowns.
