Thinking twice about new live rock

[robertloop]

Hey guys.

I recently upgraded to a 120g from my 8yr old 55 truvu. With all the room I now have, I've been considering adding more live rock. Theres lots of great stuff available locally. I traded in alot of rocks at stores for credit as they are mushroom infested. I've decided there is only one way to get them out of your tank when they have reached such numbers. Anyway......

Gonna pick up some new live rock right? WRONG. I love my current stony coral collection and the fact that the only pests in my tank are mushrooms. Ever heard of Acro eating flatworms?

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=903839

ALong with a complete slew of other pest that come in on natural rock. Red bugs, red flat worms, Sea spiders, mantis, aiptasia...... Going with dry rock folks. In six months to a year I will not be STILL fighting pests. Instead, enjoying some really nice rocks.

Robert

 

[yoboyjdizz]

You could always get pre-cured live rock. Also i would also set up a seperate container and "cook" your rock and clean them every so often just to be safe. If you do it this way i would just add little bit here and ther to avoid any potential spike..

 

[MandM]

We did our 29g reef with dry lace rock from O st. Rinsing and curing in the tank with some seed coralline on rubble from our big tank, the rocks are now encrusted and free of uninvited guests.

 

[Pico1]

I really liked the way your tank looked with all the established sps colonies and the way you aquascaped things. The mushrooms really didn't look bad at all under your XM 20K's, they were all neon blue or green.

 

[Justin74]

Ive had these thoughts as well Robert. Especially after some of the discussions at the WMC about LR. I would just use your existing rock that's free of any uglies and use that to seed the rest.

I know I will do this once I go bigger, but in my case I will barely have any "clean" rock.May have to try the cooking method with some. More likely most of my seeding will be done through sand, but even that can be a crap shoot, due to it being a collection trap for various unwanted eggs, spores etc.Seems like there's always a tit for tat somewhere

-Justin

 

[Unarce]

I cooked mine in the garage for several months before starting up my next system. You can also check with Tim (tfp) as most, if not all his rockwork was man-made.

John (YourReef) carries a lot of this araga-rock (I think it's called), which comes in some very nice shapes.

 

[Underwaterparadise]

look into this. I have no expierence so I cannot comment. I found it one day when I was searching the net! I some how seem have a breading pair of mantis in my tank or something. I found a baby one when I redid my aquascape and took it out, just to hear more of them clicking everynight. I was so hoping to get a clam but not with the mantis.

Peace
http://www.hirocks.com/

 

[shilo_1]

Base/dry rock is perfect. I got a box when I set up my old 46g and added a few pieces of LR to seed. Within 3 months I couldn't tell the difference between the dead or live rock !
Plus its cheaper than LR !

 

[Sparkss]

I couldn't agree more, just so long as the biofiltration is supported well enough to start off with the dry rock until it can get seeded to support the full blown tank without a major cycle spike.

We too are concerned about AEFWs, mantis, crabs and any other of a number of hitchiker pests. The AEFWs I am less concerned about since they should starve within a month, so a short QT process should be more than enough to take are of those. The crabs, mantis and spiders are another story, but I heard one reefer tell of using a welding machine to "clear out" any unwated hitchikers from his LR