Dumb Mistake - Live Rock Dead?

[VahanM]

Last week during my water change, I decided to rearrange my rocks. I figured I'd just take them out and put them back in real quick in a different layout so I left them on the ground. After taking out the rocks, I siphoned the water and then sort of forgot about the rocks. I decided to clean my pumps, powerhead, skimmer, etc which took about a half hour. Which means my live Fiji rock was out of water for about a half hour.

Will the micro organisms on the rock survive being out of the water for a half hour?

[kevinohio]

Probably will be some die off, but it is still live rock if it was only out for that length of time.
I would give em a cleaning using a live rock cleaning solution maybe, and a rinse.

[Sk8r]

Not too bad. I'd just rinse them in ro/di and put them back in. Mine arrived covered only in newspaper and half out of the water, and I had mushrooms and a bubble coral frag survive it AnD the cold water that came next.
Remember reefs are often exposed at low tide.

But don't do it too often. ;)

[VahanM]

Well when I realized what happened I quickly grabbed them and put them all back in the water. I didn't rinse or anything.

My tank is still fairly new. It'll be 2 months in 2 days and I hadn't found anything living on the rocks before I had taken them out anyway. Nothing but some algae anyway. I know it can take up to 6 months or longer to see a hitchhiker but I just want to make sure that chance is still there.

Should I buy another small piece of live rock and throw it in there to reseed?

[Sk8r]

You'll be fine without.

Re seeding: your first coral specimens will bring in interesting things: just look them over carefully. ;)