LR from JLs

[Megalodon]

Question about curing JLs LR... should I be picking off all the sponge off it? I think it's dead. Doesn't sponge die when it's exposed to air? This rock has been in the air a lot. And it stinks far worse than I thought it was going to be... is that normal? My whole apartment smells like something has died. I think I'm going to give it an aggressive scrub with a soft nylon brush.

Thanks in advance everybody!!!

Doug

[EmilyB]

Yes do that...

[Megalodon]

Does anybody have an extra powerhead kicking around? I have to unhook my protein skimmer to give the curing LR some circulation with an air pump.

Oh, and is it good to pour in some ammonia-detoxifying stuff? I've heard that is bad in aquariums but OK in this application. It makes sense to do so anyway.

Another question... sorry... should I assume ALL the sponge is dead?


Thanks, Doug. Canadians kick ass!

[MalHavoc]

Interestingly, Craig Bingman advocates dumping in an entire bottle of DT's phytoplankton right into the container when curing your live rock.

Allow me to quote from the article:

Curing live rock can be an incredibly difficult process. If the rock arrives in bad shape, it can be a month before it is suitably cured for use in a reef tank. There are a couple of problems. Things die in transit, and then more things appear to die during the curing process in what seems to be mainly ammonia poisoning.

Why not get a big culture of phytoplankton going and then put the rock into that container? It seems to me that the algae should avidly absorb that ammonia and other nutrients produced from the transit die off, preventing the “chain reaction” die-off and at the same time providing food for organisms that would otherwise die. It should also allow you to illuminate the rock immediately. There is some loss of organisms on live rock because of the practice of keeping it dimly illuminated for some time to prevent the growth of problematic algae in the nutrient rich solution. So my modest proposal is to give the phytoplankton a huge head start, enabling the phytoplankton to out compete the problematic algae.

The full article may be found here:

http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/a...io/default.asp

It seems as though animal network may be having issues, though. If you search Google for "Craig Bingman curing live rock", it'll be the first link, and Google has it cached.

[Chad]

I like this idea.. and I think I will try it next time..

Chad