F#@!* Whats that smell..
 

Alright so long story short,

Come home today and the house seems to smell a little funky, couldn't pin point it until I went down to the basement. I have roughly 110lbs of live rock sitting in a big rubbermaid with heaters and powerheads.

Was hoping to use this liverock for a tank in the future so it was in storage for now and I had no problems with it being in the rubbermaid thus far. However when I went downstairs it just smelled like a sewer. I go check the rubbermaid and theres this yellowish mucus on the top of the water and covering some of the rocks near the top.

Take a quick glance at the temp probe and it reads 93.2F! Sometime from Monday-Tuesday one of the heaters malfunctioned and just cooked the rubbermaid.

So now I got to ask because I have no idea is my live rock pretty much done for?

I had 0 water at the moment but I'm currently mixing some to transfer the rocks over too asap. I also removed the mucus and gave the rocks that were covered a quick fw dip.

Hopefully it's salvageable or I guess i got 110lbs of base rock now..

No, just let it re-cycle and cure and it'll be fine. Just give it a couple of months (even weeks) and several water changes.

You actually don't need to keep live rock heated if you are simply "storing" it in a rubbermaid over a period of months. Room temp is fine. Just slowly start bringing the heat up in the weeks prior to replacing it in an aquarium.

Base rock isnt such a bad thing to have. :sad: I think its toast as far as being alive.

Bacteria are tougher than some give them credit for. They're likely the reason for that "mucous" you found (and the smell). In any case, fkshiu's probably right. Give it a while and some water changes and it should be cycled (though less hitchhiker diverse).

When I had a leak on my bulkhead for the CL, I ended up ripping out everything and placing them in rubbermaid city for 3 weeks. I had the same issue with my rock, ended up putting some more powerheads in there, and a skimmer. If anything, it took care of some unwanted pests I had on the rock, so when it went back into the main tank...life was good. The smell sucks, but if you vent the room, it should be okay.

When storing live rock for a future project I'd try and keep the rock stable at 78-80 degrees. For this rock that has gone foul do some large water changes, let it re-cure and do monthly water changes.

Others on the board please chime in if this is a good idea...
If you want to re-populate bacteria use one of the commercial bacteria products like zeobac, BrightWell Aquatics Microbacter 7, Probio, ect after the rock has recured.

hmm, never save money on heaters

I agree. People expect different things from Live Rock. I expect it to have more life than just bacteria. Keeping that kind of life alive on rock during storage requires keeping it circulated and warm...even fed..to a degree.

Having superheated it, it will still function as bacterial rock...but to me its value has been diminished because you will have killed a lot of stuff on it.

yeah... makes no sense to have all your livestock dependent on a cheap heater...

When you transfer the rock over to the new water, smell each piece and set aside the stinky ones. I had a tank break and the live rock in the barrel started smelling bad. Turned out some snails & sponges died but only a few pieces were affected. The other good pieces were transferred into clean water and after a week, when tested, the water was fine in those containers. The stinky rock I just pulled out and left dry sitting in my carport for now. The smell went away and later, I'll clean the dried rocks, reseed and let sit in some circulating water for several months to cure and become live again.

I ended up "saving" 90% of the rock by doing the smell test & only taking away the stinky rocks.