Stored Live Rock - To keep live or not to keep live

[jon.smolders]

Back when I had live rock, I kept it alive through several shut downs. Just threw it in a tote with a heater/power head. I put a lid on it and had no problems with evaporation...

Last shut down I dried it all out, and now I am regretting that decision... mainly because I am too cheap to buy another 50 lbs of live rock and I seem to be having issues with dry rock.

[gobytron]

A big part of me would like to give this rock a bleach.acid bath, dry it out and then go buy some quality fresh LR and seed it with it and start fresh....cooking it like this until I want to use it.

I did have a little hair algae...which I don't want to have to deal with in the future.

There is WAY to much to fit into one brute...

I have it in a 4x4x4 food grade container now....no lid and can;t really get one for it.

I don't like to use anything that isn't made for food storage, had some bad experiences with Rubbermaid and brutes in the past.

[hillegom]

Even a sheet of plywood on the top would curtail some evaporation. A big piece of plastic even better.

[monocus]

use polly or seran wrap

[Koleswrath]

I wouldn't bother. Why waste the time and energy? Cook it a couple months before you plan to start up again and seed with a nice small piece from a good system.
Greg

[gregzz4]

I vote to keep it alive.

You talk about buying new rock when you're ready, but you'll still end up with algae and other things you don't even know about until you get it wet.
I agree with wanting new LR. I'll do it myself soon.
But because you have so much rock that's already wet, why waste it ?

If you're looking for cooked rock, do the whole process of cooking and WCs before you want to use it.
If not, just store it as below and use it when you're ready.

Cover it in some cheap poly from the hardware store to keep your evap down.
Maybe do a WC once a month, along with a good 'shake out all the gunk' method and remove the spunk, and feed every week or 2 to keep the pods/stars etc alive.
Keep your powerheads and heaters in there and make sure it's aerated.

You'll be happy to have so much live rock available later on, but be sure to 'cook' it to rid yourself of PO4 issues