Live Rock dieing off, what next ?

[skozzy]

Well my first batch of live rock didn't go down to well, what life was on
the rock has almost completely gone (3 weeks), in several places the dead
stuff is being covered quite quickly with white fungus, all this rock is in
a holding tank, if I was to leave the rock there how long would it take for
the fungus to finish it's job and die off itself and what would it leave
behind. ?????

The water conditions are extremly bad, the NH3/4 and NO2 and NO3 are off the
scale of my test kits, I have done one complete water change and tonight I
will be getting another complete change. Live rock isn't cheap and I don't
want to throw it away, there is still some soft coral in it and I also saw
some small sea apples on it also. If there was no signs of life I would just
blast the rock with a high pressure hose and strip the outside of the rock
and use it later for base rock. If soeone could tell me how to remove the
left over soft coral without killing it off I could then remove them and
clean the rock and maybe replace the corals.

If the rocks life forms were to die off, and if the rock clears up, is there
any chance that new corals will form, or does the rock need to have corals
added to them ?

[Marc Levenson]

I don't know all the details, but basically you need that LR in some good clean
sal****er. You need some serious circulation and run a quality skimmer 24 hours
a day.

I wouldn't worry about the freebie livestock on the rock. Peel it off if need
be, and keep testing your water until it is good.

Marc


skozzy wrote:

> Well my first batch of live rock didn't go down to well, what life was on
> the rock has almost completely gone (3 weeks), in several places the dead
> stuff is being covered quite quickly with white fungus, all this rock is in
> a holding tank, if I was to leave the rock there how long would it take for
> the fungus to finish it's job and die off itself and what would it leave
> behind. ?????
>
> The water conditions are extremly bad, the NH3/4 and NO2 and NO3 are off the
> scale of my test kits, I have done one complete water change and tonight I
> will be getting another complete change. Live rock isn't cheap and I don't
> want to throw it away, there is still some soft coral in it and I also saw
> some small sea apples on it also. If there was no signs of life I would just
> blast the rock with a high pressure hose and strip the outside of the rock
> and use it later for base rock. If soeone could tell me how to remove the
> left over soft coral without killing it off I could then remove them and
> clean the rock and maybe replace the corals.
>
> If the rocks life forms were to die off, and if the rock clears up, is there
> any chance that new corals will form, or does the rock need to have corals
> added to them ?

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[KK]

Don't give up on that rock. Do as Marc suggested, aggressive water
changes, circulation and skimming. If you can, get some light on it.
You will be surprised what can grow from the live rock one, even two
years down the road and live rocks main purpose is filtration. Good
luck.

[skozzy]

Its good to hear there is hope, today I scrubbed the rock, and while
siphoning the water from the tank I run the hose over them and scrubbed
more, I was going to take them down to the beach and do it, but the sun was
a killer today. During the night I went out and collect 200 liters of sea
water, and now that is in the tank, in a few days I will get some more. I
was very surprised when I saw several of the left over life actualy showing
signs they are still alive, things might not be too bad. The smell was off
the scale when I was cleaning the rocks, but after the water change it now
smells like a fresh beach, I guess tomorrow it will be sour again, but I
will keep up the water changes. I find this a good learning experiance.

"KK" > wrote in message
...
> Don't give up on that rock. Do as Marc suggested, aggressive water
> changes, circulation and skimming. If you can, get some light on it.
> You will be surprised what can grow from the live rock one, even two
> years down the road and live rocks main purpose is filtration. Good
> luck.
>