live rock dead?

[mikuarium]

Recently, I purchased live rock that I got from an established tank. Until I got my tank set up, I had it sit in a bucket of salt water for a week. When I opened the bucket, it smelled absolutely terrible! I suspect that a lot of the organisms on the live rock died. However, I noticed that there were parts of the live rock that turned white and was covered with a slimy substance. I washed it off as much as I could though not much of the white color came off. Although, I wasnt sure if it is good for my tank, I still put about 35 lbs of this live rock. Is the live rock ruined? Should I remove it from my tank?

Thanks

[reefnetworth]

you have to circulate, keep a temp between 76- 84F and some type of lighting to keep LR alive.
Yes, your rock is dead. it will have to complete a nitrogen cycle before you can add any fish, inverts, corals, anything alive.
GOTO: reef chemistry forum and search through the chemistry articles. they will be a great help in understanding what it takes to have and keep a reef tank.
also, there are some very intelligent people to answer questions you may have concerning water chemistry. :thumbsup:

[ChrisKil]

A minor issue, but IMO you don't really need the lights to keep the live rock alive. If there are corals and such on the rock, they need light. However the coralline doesn't need light; just the temp, circulation, and salinity.

[reefnetworth]

were their any photosynthetic creatures or plants that were once alive on the rock? i dont think lighting would make much of a difference either if their were no circulation or temp control, salinity or SG and pH control. :D

[Rockhead21564]

I believe that lighting does help cure LR, not essential maybe. But when I cure my LR I use lighting to help coraline to start and any other photo critters to get going. Just MO.

[ChrisKil]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10520460#post10520460 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mikuarium
...I still put about 35 lbs of this live rock...
Mikuarium if you have more of that rock that you didn't put back in your tank, I would put the rest in now. With all that die-off your tank is going to have a big cycle again, so you should put the rest in now. I would bet that all that coralline algae didn't die off and should come back after a while. [ Even if the rock is completely dead, it is still base rock. Add a little seed rock, wait 3-6 months and the coralline will spread to the base rock. ]


Rockhead - I agree, I would definitely recommend using lights when mikuarium puts all that rock back in his tank. When I put my live rock in my tank there was macro algea and some photosynthetic creatures. Normal photo periods can't hurt anything, I just don't think lights help cure. Leaving your lights on for excessive periods will actually hinder coralline growth & spur nuisance algae.

[mikuarium]

No, there were no photosynthetic creatures or plants. Do you have any idea what the slimy substance on the live rock is? Looking at my tank now, I see that I did not remove all of the slimy substance. There is also some white hairy algae looking substance as well.

[mikuarium]

Chris, you are right, the coralline did not die off as more than half of the rocks have a pink/purple coloring.

[ChrisKil]

Does the slimy substance look like this:
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa63/jdjeff58/IMG_0133.jpg

The above photo is from this thread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1182167) , you may want to read it if that is what your slimy stuff looks like.

When I first setup my tank I put in a dead starfish for decoration. (I have a collection of starfish, seahorses, shells, etc from my annual trips to the beach.) I noticed after a few days or so something that looks like the stuff in the above picture all over the starfish. It wasn't on anything else. I picked up the starfish to find out in was halfway broken down. The entire top was pretty much gone, and the once hard arms were soft.

My guess is that stuff is related to dead organisms breaking down in saltwater. I took the starfish out of my tank to get rid of the slime, but the slime that stayed in the tank eventually disappeared and never spread to anything else.