Live Rock Some Questions?

[stevek77]

hi ok live rock,
i may be able to get some from £3 a kilo taken from a 5yr old running tank but its limited stock so i need to get it asap, problem being im nowhere near ready to set my tank up so how can i keep it alive for say 4 wks or so?
also has the water got to be warm or will it kill it if i kept it in a bucket of cold salt water?
any help or if its even poss to keep it that long? i have got a spare little filter and spare heater so i was thinking of getting a big plastic box and setting up a little habitat but do i need to do that?

 

[Donya]

How nice is the rock? If it's encrusted with all sorts of awesome animals and algae then you would almost certainly have massive die-off that would both give you a lot of cycling time and also would be kind of unfair to the awesome animals. Rock that's been in a high-light tank as well will not necessarily fare well taken away from that. If the rock is more of "eh..."-looking and is pretty unintersting, then it might be ok for that time in a bucket of saltwater as long as you ensure that there's flow, a reasonable temperature, and occasional food to keep it cycled. You'll want to heat the bucket if it's likely to drop under 70F/21C; letting it get ice cold would both be bad for critters if there are any and probably would give you microbe die-off too (I'm assuming the source tank is tropical?). LR offers from established tanks are usually pretty common in areas where the hobby is well-established, so you may be better off waiting until you have things set up and then scouting around for another deal.

 

[ainsy]

If you aren't ready then it isn't worth it.

If you want to keep it 'live' then you will need a minimum of heated salt water + flow + light. As Donya says if it has lots of life on it it will prob. die if you don't supply these 3 things (oh and some ammonia in the form of food!).

If the rock is just plain looking, with maybe some encrusting algae then you can store it indefinitely as long as you provide the 3 (4!) things as you probably won't need to light it.

 

[simonas]

I rushed into buying rock when I first set up and regretted it as I now realise it was poor quality. The rocks the main thing inyour set up and worth buying wisely. Theres usually plenty being sold on at half the price of LFS's