Emergency live rock rescue

[[email protected]]

An acquaintance of mine got evicted from his house today. He had about
a dozen 50+gallon tanks. The fish were sent to new homes without
difficulty, and I got the $500 of live rock he had just purchased,
along with all of the components for one tank. BTW, I've only done
freshwater until today. And the original owner is busy with other
stuff for a few days, not to mention that I live 30 miles from him.

The coral was placed in a tray, the tanks disassembled, and everything
was driven to my house. I'd estimate that the coral was out of the
water for a couple of hours until I could get 15 gallons of distilled
water and an appropriate amount of Coralife salt into the 55 gallon
tank. Right now, the hydrometer says that the right amount of salt is
in the water, but it's temperature is only up to 64 degrees F and it's
still quite cloudy. And my basement smells like a fish market. So, my
first question is whether or not anything is still alive. Oh, and
"everything" apparently includes a mantis shrimp that was hiding in the
coral when it was acquired, and is still in hiding today.

Assuming the answer is yes, I also need to assemble all of the other
components. I've got two ten-gallon tanks, a protein skimmer, a wave
maker for the main tank, and assorted bits of piping. If anyone can
point me to diagrams of what goes where, I'd appreciate that as well.
I'll probably post a few pics on Flickr later tonight and put a link in
a follow-up to this post.

Thanks for any help.

[[email protected]]

wrote:
> An acquaintance of mine got evicted from his house today. He had about
> a dozen 50+gallon tanks. The fish were sent to new homes without
> difficulty, and I got the $500 of live rock he had just purchased,
> along with all of the components for one tank.

OK, the mantis shrimp that had been hiding in the coral seems to have
survived, although it may not be alive in the morning. I've posted a
picture at Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samwyse/72303848/

[miskairal]

Oh boy, what a mess. I'm very new to all this myself but I know my
uncured live rock travelled for 3 hours to my place without water but it
was packed in wet newspaper and a styrene box. It had coral on it that
survived but not the sort that you pay for. Someone else here with some
experience would be able to tell you more but I wouldn't give up yet.
I've never seen a mantis shrimp but yours doesn't look too good.

You are in for a huge learning curve and about the only similarity to
freshwater is the cycling of a tank. Try to get a book from a library
and read it to give you the basics and then just keep reading everything
you can on the subject on the net or in books. The main thing I noticed
is that there is no one way to do things with sal****er tanks. Everyone
does every thing differently which can be confusing although everyone
recommends the use of a skimmer and live rock.

Here are some of the links I've found or been directed to. There seems
to be a lot of forums but they're better to visit when you have a grasp
of the basics or you end up trying to understand too much at once.

http://www.melevsreef.com/
http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php?s=
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/knowledgebase/
http://ozreef.org/
http://thereeftank.com/forums/archive/index.php/
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/archives/

Best of luck!
miskairal



wrote:
> wrote:
>
>>An acquaintance of mine got evicted from his house today. He had about
>>a dozen 50+gallon tanks. The fish were sent to new homes without
>>difficulty, and I got the $500 of live rock he had just purchased,
>>along with all of the components for one tank.
>
>
> OK, the mantis shrimp that had been hiding in the coral seems to have
> survived, although it may not be alive in the morning. I've posted a
> picture at Flickr:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/samwyse/72303848/
>

[Roy]

Hard to say if anything is alive, but odds are some or a good portion
of it will survive. I owld do my best to get the temp up to 75 to 80
deg though for best insurance and make sure your sg is correct........

If you can get to the mantis I would remove it if possible, but then
thats a personal choice. Some folks like em others do not, other have
them in a species tank.....they are quite unique and colorfull and I
would probably remove it and put it in its own tank

Best bet with the live rock would have been to place it in buckets
with some water from the tanks that were taken down, or at least in
styrofoam boxes and newspapers and kept much warmer....I wold not
worry about the cloudy water as its just from the sand etc and will
clear up on its own, but work on the temp.

I would not concern myself with the protein skimmer or wave maker yet,
and wait until things get cycled again as the die off you may have
will be just like cycling a tank, but the time frame will not be as
long in all reality.....So have a test kit and check it for ammonia
etc......

Till then, more info n the type of skimer you have as well as
wavemaker brand and you will have a better chsance of someone being
able to tell you whats up with those items as there are all kinds of
them out there in use.


On 10 Dec 2005 18:04:51 -0800, wrote:
An acquaintance of mine got evicted from his house today. He had
about
a dozen 50+gallon tanks. The fish were sent to new homes without
difficulty, and I got the $500 of live rock he had just purchased,
along with all of the components for one tank. BTW, I've only done
freshwater until today. And the original owner is busy with other
stuff for a few days, not to mention that I live 30 miles from him.

The coral was placed in a tray, the tanks disassembled, and everything
was driven to my house. I'd estimate that the coral was out of the
water for a couple of hours until I could get 15 gallons of distilled
water and an appropriate amount of Coralife salt into the 55 gallon
tank. Right now, the hydrometer says that the right amount of salt is
in the water, but it's temperature is only up to 64 degrees F and it's
still quite cloudy. And my basement smells like a fish market. So,
my
first question is whether or not anything is still alive. Oh, and
"everything" apparently includes a mantis shrimp that was hiding in
the
coral when it was acquired, and is still in hiding today.

Assuming the answer is yes, I also need to assemble all of the other
components. I've got two ten-gallon tanks, a protein skimmer, a wave
maker for the main tank, and assorted bits of piping. If anyone can
point me to diagrams of what goes where, I'd appreciate that as well.
I'll probably post a few pics on Flickr later tonight and put a link
in
a follow-up to this post.

Thanks for any help.

--
\\\|///
( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder! Koi-ahoi mates....

[Cindy]

wrote:
> An acquaintance of mine got evicted from his house today. He had
> about a dozen 50+gallon tanks. The fish were sent to new homes
> without difficulty, and I got the $500 of live rock he had just
> purchased, along with all of the components for one tank. BTW, I've
> only done freshwater until today. And the original owner is busy
> with other stuff for a few days, not to mention that I live 30 miles
> from him.

So the live rock was basically new, then? How long had it been set up?
Makes no difference I guess, you'll be starting anew. You'd best get a good
beginner book (which I'll let someone else recommend because I don't know
what's available these days.) Learn about cycling the tank and make sure
you've placed your live rock correctly for good stability and water flow.
You don't want dead spots where

> The coral was placed in a tray, the tanks disassembled, and everything
> was driven to my house. I'd estimate that the coral was out of the
> water for a couple of hours until I could get 15 gallons of distilled
> water and an appropriate amount of Coralife salt into the 55 gallon
> tank. Right now, the hydrometer says that the right amount of salt is
> in the water, but it's temperature is only up to 64 degrees F and it's
> still quite cloudy. And my basement smells like a fish market. So,
> my first question is whether or not anything is still alive. Oh, and
> "everything" apparently includes a mantis shrimp that was hiding in
> the coral when it was acquired, and is still in hiding today.

I have no experience with mantis shrimp, but I understand they can cause
problems. You might want to take Roy's suggestion about removing it.
Perhaps see if the LFS (local fish store) would take it or board it for you
until you figure out what you're doing.

Recheck the specific gravity (SG) a few times. It can change after all the
salt dissolves, and it will change as the temperature rises.

> Assuming the answer is yes, I also need to assemble all of the other
> components. I've got two ten-gallon tanks, a protein skimmer, a wave
> maker for the main tank, and assorted bits of piping. If anyone can
> point me to diagrams of what goes where, I'd appreciate that as well.
> I'll probably post a few pics on Flickr later tonight and put a link
> in a follow-up to this post.

One of the 10-gal. might be intended for a refugium. Maybe you could put
the mantis in it. The other is most likely for a skimmer/filter sump, or
maybe a quarantine tank.

I've done a lot of reading but haven't kept a big marine tank for 10
years--things have changed a lot! So I'm no expert, but hope this helps.

[[email protected]]

Roy wrote:
> Hard to say if anything is alive, but odds are some or a good portion
> of it will survive. I owld do my best to get the temp up to 75 to 80
> deg though for best insurance and make sure your sg is correct........

This morning, the little ViaAqua heater had gotten the temp up to 68
deg. I've thought about just putting some distilled water into a tea
kettle and warming it up before adding the salt, but for now I'm just
using the tank heater.

> If you can get to the mantis I would remove it if possible, but then
> thats a personal choice. Some folks like em others do not, other have
> them in a species tank.....they are quite unique and colorfull and I
> would probably remove it and put it in its own tank

The mantis is doing better this morning. Last night he was curled into
what can only be described as a fetal position, but this morning he was
standing up. He still hadn't moved a fraction of an inch from where
I'd first seen him, but when I aimed a flashlight at him, he scuttled
back under the rocks and has now disappeared completely. He's a
hichhiker whom the previous owner intended to get rid of, but he's
pretty good at hiding. We never saw him when we were moving the rocks
around; I wonder if he could have burrowed into the sand? I'm not
going to remove him now because, aside from the coral, he'll be the
only inhabitant of this tank for a while.

> Best bet with the live rock would have been to place it in buckets
> with some water from the tanks that were taken down, or at least in
> styrofoam boxes and newspapers and kept much warmer....

20/20 hindsight. I was busy getting instructions about the tank setup,
other people were disassembling bedroom furniture, and H. had resigned
himself to tossing the rock into the trash before I volunteered to take
it. It wasn't until I was half-way home that I started wondering how
much of it survived the rought treatment.

> I would not
> worry about the cloudy water as its just from the sand etc and will
> clear up on its own, but work on the temp.

The particulates settled out overnight; now all the coral has a layer
of fine dust on top of it. I suppose I need to figure out which end is
up, since I doubt that the coral likes being buried face-first in the
sand.

> I would not concern myself with the protein skimmer or wave maker yet,
> and wait until things get cycled again as the die off you may have
> will be just like cycling a tank, but the time frame will not be as
> long in all reality.....So have a test kit and check it for ammonia
> etc......

I went to Lowe's this morning and got the fittings I need to connect
the Dvoneb Aqua RO/DI unit to a faucet in my laundry room. It seems to
be producing about 2 gallons/hour, so I may have the main tank full
this evening. I'll check for ammonia then. (It also has a small leak,
so it's sitting in its own ten gallon tank for the time being. And I
didn't buy Teflon tape, so the fittings are dripping onto a towel that
leads them into my washing machine.)

> Till then, more info n the type of skimer you have as well as
> wavemaker brand and you will have a better chsance of someone being
> able to tell you whats up with those items as there are all kinds of
> them out there in use.

Judging from pictures at Melev's Reef Site, the wavemaker is a SCWD
Wavemaker, but I'm hoping that my hourly pourings of new sal****er will
render it unneeded for a while. The skimmer says "ViaAqua Power Head"
on its pump; Google image search makes me think that it's a "Via Aqua
Protein Skimmer":

http://www.aquastealth.com/browseproducts/Via-Aqua-Protein-Skimmer.HTML
The water in the tank already has a patch of foam floating on it.
Should I just remove it manually until the skimmer is running? If so,
how?

BTW, I just posted a picture of most of the equipement at Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samwyse/

[Cindy]

wrote:

> This morning, the little ViaAqua heater had gotten the temp up to 68
> deg. I've thought about just putting some distilled water into a tea
> kettle and warming it up before adding the salt, but for now I'm just
> using the tank heater.

What size is the heater? Make sure it has enough watts for your gallons.

>
> The mantis is doing better this morning. Last night he was curled
> into what can only be described as a fetal position, but this morning
> he was standing up. He still hadn't moved a fraction of an inch from
> where I'd first seen him, but when I aimed a flashlight at him, he
> scuttled back under the rocks and has now disappeared completely.
> He's a hichhiker whom the previous owner intended to get rid of, but
> he's pretty good at hiding. We never saw him when we were moving the
> rocks around; I wonder if he could have burrowed into the sand? I'm
> not going to remove him now because, aside from the coral, he'll be
> the only inhabitant of this tank for a while.

If you're going to remove him at all, you better do it now. You're not
going to want to tear the tank down to get the shrimp out, and that's what
it will take.

Cindy

[[email protected]]

Cindy wrote:
> wrote:
> > This morning, the little ViaAqua heater had gotten the temp up to 68
> > deg. I've thought about just putting some distilled water into a tea
> > kettle and warming it up before adding the salt, but for now I'm just
> > using the tank heater.
>
> What size is the heater? Make sure it has enough watts for your gallons.

It's the heater that came with the tank, so I'm assuming that it's the
right size. Remember, this was a complete setup that was broken down
by the owner and myself and then moved to my house in just a few hours.
I may have gotten a few more parts than I needed, but I'm sure I
didn't lose any.

> > The mantis is doing better this morning. [...] I'm
> > not going to remove him now because, aside from the coral, he'll be
> > the only inhabitant of this tank for a while.
>
> If you're going to remove him at all, you better do it now. You're not
> going to want to tear the tank down to get the shrimp out, and that's what
> it will take.

In theory, the tank's owner will find a new place to live and reclaim
the setup. We'll try to get the shrimp then. Of course, that may be
months from now, and potentially never.

[Cindy]

>> What size is the heater? Make sure it has enough watts for your
>> gallons.
>
> It's the heater that came with the tank, so I'm assuming that it's the
> right size. Remember, this was a complete setup that was broken down
> by the owner and myself and then moved to my house in just a few
> hours. I may have gotten a few more parts than I needed, but I'm sure
> I didn't lose any.

And I guess if he had 50 tanks set up, he MUST know what he's doing! Did he
get evicted because of his tanks, or did he spend all his money on the hobby
and not pay his rent? ;}

>>> The mantis is doing better this morning. [...] I'm
>>> not going to remove him now because, aside from the coral, he'll be
>>> the only inhabitant of this tank for a while.
>>
>> If you're going to remove him at all, you better do it now. You're
>> not going to want to tear the tank down to get the shrimp out, and
>> that's what it will take.
>
> In theory, the tank's owner will find a new place to live and reclaim
> the setup. We'll try to get the shrimp then. Of course, that may be
> months from now, and potentially never.

Oh MAN, he wants it back??? Bummer! LOL
I hope everything works out for him, and you enjoy your new hobby. :)

Cindy

[[email protected]]

Cindy wrote:
> And I guess if he had 50 tanks set up, he MUST know what he's doing! Did he
> get evicted because of his tanks, or did he spend all his money on the hobby
> and not pay his rent? ;}

The latter, apparently. He had to have known this was coming but
didn't tell anyone until the last minute, totally disrupting a lot of
people's plans for the week-end. For instance, I was planning to
replace a dead garbage disposal. And... oh, don't get me started.
Let's just say that he has a bunch of friends who are more than a
little ticked off at him.

> > In theory, the tank's owner will find a new place to live and reclaim
> > the setup. We'll try to get the shrimp then. Of course, that may be
> > months from now, and potentially never.
>
> Oh MAN, he wants it back??? Bummer! LOL

My wife considers the temporary nature of our possession to be a
benefit. ;-) We had talked about getting a sal****er tank a few
months ago but ultimately decided against it because of the time
commitment. Hah! I guess that fate works in mysterious ways.

> I hope everything works out for him, and you enjoy your new hobby. :)

Well, I've certainly learned a lot about reef tanks in the last 24
hours. As for "H", I'm sure that he'll be OK as long as he stays out
of dark alleys. ;-)

[Wayne Sallee]

LOL you are doing all this for temporary, hehehehe

Go ahead and hook up the skimer, just make sure that it
does not go wild and overflow onto the floor. The skimmer
will help remove stuff out of the water before it turns
into amonia.

Cool a talking hydrometer :-) hehe What exactly is the
salinity? Also wach out for air bubles on the dydrometer,
as it will cause an inacureate reading.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



wrote on 12/11/2005 9:01 PM:
> Cindy wrote:
>
>>And I guess if he had 50 tanks set up, he MUST know what he's doing! Did he
>>get evicted because of his tanks, or did he spend all his money on the hobby
>>and not pay his rent? ;}
>
>
> The latter, apparently. He had to have known this was coming but
> didn't tell anyone until the last minute, totally disrupting a lot of
> people's plans for the week-end. For instance, I was planning to
> replace a dead garbage disposal. And... oh, don't get me started.
> Let's just say that he has a bunch of friends who are more than a
> little ticked off at him.
>
>
>>>In theory, the tank's owner will find a new place to live and reclaim
>>>the setup. We'll try to get the shrimp then. Of course, that may be
>>>months from now, and potentially never.
>>
>>Oh MAN, he wants it back??? Bummer! LOL
>
>
> My wife considers the temporary nature of our possession to be a
> benefit. ;-) We had talked about getting a sal****er tank a few
> months ago but ultimately decided against it because of the time
> commitment. Hah! I guess that fate works in mysterious ways.
>
>
>>I hope everything works out for him, and you enjoy your new hobby. :)
>
>
> Well, I've certainly learned a lot about reef tanks in the last 24
> hours. As for "H", I'm sure that he'll be OK as long as he stays out
> of dark alleys. ;-)
>