using LR from a poorly maintained tank

[Fish Stix]

So I have been an irresponsible aquarist but I'm trying to get back on the right path. After some very intense personal life issues concerning both occupation and marriage...I have been very negligent toward the care and maintenance of my 180 fowlr (just a lionfish tank really). Long story short there has not been a water change done on said tank for a good long time...and my protein skimmer went out long ago.

Now I am out of my funk and have a good job and am starting to put money into turning this tank into a reef tank but I have run into a dilemma... I have perhaps 500 lb or so of live rock (yes about 2.5 lbs per gallon) that has been stewing in what I can only assume without a test kit must be nasty water...it doesn't smell but the facts are there. I am worried about nutrient buildup within the rocks and its potential to leech out after conversion to a reef system.

I'm not certain what other information I could give that would be considered pertinent to the advise I seek, but am willing to lay it all on the table if any further info is required.

[whosurcaddie]

If your worried about leaching and your doing a rebuild I would pull the rock and put it in rubbermaid containers (be sure to get as much detritus off the rock as possible) with new saltwater. After a week test the water for phosphate. If you get a reading then the rock is leaching. If not then your good to go. If the rock is leaching there's two options you can buy a product called seaklear http://www.amazon.com/SeaKlear-Phosp...words=seaklear its a phosphate remover for pools. You would add about a capful. and it will bind the phosphates in the water into a crystallized substance. This allows the rock to continue leaching and you just repeat the process until your phosphate reading is zero. The other option is to just continually change the water until you get a zero phosphate reading. I'm sure this goes without saying but you will need to provide water movement and a heating source in these containers.

[Fish Stix]

So it is just phosphate that I should be worried about them leaching?

I suppose I was concerned that if I were to remove the water from the tank and add new water and corals then there may be some ammonia, nitrate or nitrite buildup in the rocks core which would seep out and make corals hard or impossible to keep for some period of not indefinitely. I had heard this happens over long periods of time in even well kept tanks so I had assumed surely it must happen very quickly in a poorly maintained aquarium?

[Reef Frog]

The ammonia & other nitrogen compounds are misch less of a worry. You do want to get the accumulated organics off the rocks first however. There's a good chance you'll have a cycle of some kind when you treat the rock as described above and put it back into the tank, so you'll have to deal with that.

[joshky]

500lb of live rock is some serious filtration, it depends on your bioload (which I'm assuming is low since you said it's mainly a lionfish tank, who knows, maybe you have 20 lionfish lol) but your parameters may not be terrible. Do you currently have algae issues? If not, that's a good sign.

[SGT_York]

When you recycle the rocks in new water, dump a bunch of macro algae in there. keep it cycling until the macro growth comes to a halt.

Takes a bit more time, but works perfectly.

[cleverbs]

Just because you havent done water changes doesnt mean your water is bad. Your tank can go a very long time without a water change if you are just talking about nitrates.

If you where neglecting the tank then I am sure the fish were not fed a lot and possible your rock is in fine condition. If theres not algae all over your tank I would take some water to your LFS beings you dont have a test kit and have them test it. If the params are good I would just use the rock.

[Raoul5Duke]

Search for "cooking live rock", I think this works good if rocks are leeching but several of the other suggestions here seem just as viable.

[Fish Stix]

It's just the one lionfish about 10-12"(now, he grew up there) and a large CUC....I have very bad algae all over my LR but my CUC is starting to wipe it out. The tank went perhaps a year without water change, I just fed my lionfish and topped it off.

Now that I am starting to try to get on the right path I have done about a 10% water change last weekend and the weekend before. I also added the CUC...I purchased a rather large build your own from liveaquaria...perhaps $450 worth of snails and small hermits and a few strawberry crabs.

Also I have well water and no RO unit as of yet...I'm not sure how much that is contributing to my algae issues...I'm guessing quite a bit?

Given this info would I be okay just removing the lionfish and completely changing the water rather than treating the rocks in a separate container? Maybe things aren't so bad as I had presumed...

Also I am moving in about 2 months...I'm not sure if that changes the situation...as this is my first move with the tank...

[ExpensiveHobby]

Using well water with no RODI, you will always be behind the 8ball on the algae. Spending $450 on snails and hermits seems a little silly now, I would have spent half that on a CUC and the other half on an RODI unit.

[Reef Frog]

You said the ultimate goal was a reef tank. I would get the RODI asap and do a few months of water changes to get off to the best possible start when you add corals. Go ahead and buy your test kits soon and have the right ALK-Ca-Mg levels and nutrients under control before you proceed in a big way. Is the tank over run with algae or detrius? Keep in mind a CUC that big, even in a big tank like yours, may run out of food at some time. GL.

[woodnaquanut]

Originally Posted by Fish Stix

Also I am moving in about 2 months...I'm not sure if that changes the situation...as this is my first move with the tank...

Have you had a reef tank before?

At this point, I wouldn't bother setting it up as a reef just before a move. Use the time to see where you are and plan for the move. Moving is stressful for you and the tank. You will need to cycle the tank after the move, so let's make that as stress free as possible.

Test the water for Nitrates and Phosphates. Get good test kits. I like Salifert but there are other good ones. Once you know where you are, you can develop a plan.

Just guessing that both N and P are high, I'd get rid of the LF and drain the tank. If you have time before the move, acid wash and bleach the rocks. In the two month time frame you could get them all clean and dry - much easier to move.

It seems like you have LOTS of rock. Perhaps much more than you need. This would be a good time to reevaluate your aquascape and perhaps sell off some of that rock.

Now about the CUC! How about setting up a small tank/holding tub with some of the ugly rocks and sand. Circulation and heat should keep them going. Other options would be to sell them, find a reef buddy to hold them or trade to a LFS for credit.

If you put in your location info here you might be able to find local reefers that can help!

[Fish Keeper82]

im in a simillar situation.... i had a 170 gallon tank that sprung a leak and i had to get all the water out before it did some seroius damage to my home. well now i have about 300 lbs of what used to be live rock. i bought some containers at home depot to store the in(on sale since christmas lights need to come down n stored) and placed all but what i needed to keep a 20 gallon quarentine going for my fish in the mean time while i get a new 125 gallon.

i had a bad outbreak of aptasia in my first experiance with a saltwater tank 10 plus years ago. it was a 30 gallon and i had about 30 lbs of live rock or more. i couldnt keep the aptasia under control and soon it was a sea of them. what i did was removed all the live rock and boiled it in a large pot all i could fit at a time. then i cured it in a 50 gallon container for months untill it was ready to go back. this was the only way i rid my tank of the aptasia. this is the same thing im going to do now with the 300 lbs. only way to truly start over new. never seen an aptasia in my tanks since. and of course all the rock will be live once again. time consuming but it worked for me and will be doing again soon.
maybe not an option for you but it works great if the rock has tons of hair algea on it.

[Fish Stix]

I have never had a reef tank before...this is my first sw tank. I have roughly 25yrs fw experience but I am surprised how little of that carries over to sw...it is a whole different ball game.thank you so much everybody for your continued patience with what I know must be common sense questions to any reef keeping veteran.

I know now it was silly to spend so much on the CUC instead of RO but my reasoning was that the cheapest RO unit that any of my friends have was around $1k so I figured that's just how much they were... Also I was getting mixed reviews...some people here and there saying they were also on well water with no RO and no issues. I will get a test kit soon as well... At risk of sounding like I have an excuse for everything I hadn't had one yet because before I let everything go I was doing 10% every other week water change...and my experience told me this was more than enough to keep clean water with one fish. I have no excuse for not having one now, though!

I really would like to kill off as little of my beneficial bacteria as possible so I was hoping for now to just keep changing the water until it's all clean, but some are saying to boil it or treat it....will this not put me back at square one as though it were dry rock?

As far as the amount I just like lots...I have power heads inside and behind the rock work itself...

EDIT: btw I will be moving only 30-40 minutes away and was hoping to set up a temporary SW "pond" at my new location to move everything into and then come back for the tank....I was hoping this would have minimal effect on the bacteria die off...

[tkeracer619]

Here is what I would do.

If you can muster the cash for this unit it has a great price right now. Call to order and have the 99% membrane added in place of the standard one. Awesome RO for $200.
http://spectrapure.com/RO-RODI/RODI-...D-RO-DI-System.

Order at minimum two 200g boxes of salt. Faster and Smith have them on sale with free shipping for $40. You can also get them on amazon with free shipping for $40 each right now (max of 3 per order I think). This is the cheapest I have found at this moment.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...56&pcatid=4856
or
http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Ocean-...=instant+ocean

Get one of these for your move. Put your rock in it and as much water as you can shuttle over from the display. You can probably find it local at a farm supply house cheaper. If some of the rock needs to stay in buckets thats fine. Make sure you have at minimum an air stone moving air and water around in the stock tank and wherever you keep your fish.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/stor...y?cm_vc=-10005

Do a 50g water change now with new saltwater.

After the move place the rock, new sand, and as much water as you can salvage into the display. Replace the rest with new saltwater. Replace the skimmer. Run GFO in a TLF 150 reactor for a month or so without the lights on. You will want to refresh it regularly. I would test the tank with a hanna ulr 736 phosphorus checker, if you get one make sure to get extra reagents. This will give you accurate enough results.

If you have algae all over the place then I would suggest "cooking" the rock in the rubbermaid from now until your move. It should be ready by then if that is the case.

Posting a picture may help.

During the time you are waiting on the tank to be ready for lighting you can work on a qt setup and protocol so you don't risk your reef. There are tons of pests you will be responsible for keeping out of your system.

[Fish Stix]

Yes I definitely did not know a quality RO unit could be picked up for $200 but now that I know I'll get one for sure.Thank you very much for taking the time to help me with those tips.

Right now I suppose my main worry is if i can use the LR from my tank and actually keeping it "live" in the process. It seems some people are saying it will likely need to go through some process or another before use but a few people seem to be saying its probably fine...

Well it's embarrassing but if pics would help here are some low quality pics of the situation in my tank...

[Mishri]

In order to determine if your rock is bad or not you would have to know if you had high phosphates, something like 2.0ppm then a lot would get absorbed into the rock and as you bring your phosphates down the phosphate will leach back out and you phosphates will rise again until the rock has leached it all back out.

However, your phosphates could have been fine, all that algea could have been absorbing it instead of your rocks. The only way to know for sure is to test the water conditions, and see if you can keep the phosphates low. Another option is just using a phosphate reactor, and algae scrubber to keep your phosphates low as they keep getting leached back into the water.

[Mishri]

Oh.. and based on the algae I'm seeing on there, if you don't want to see more of that you'll likely need to cook your rocks.. I haven't found any other good way once rocks get covered like that.

With hat much live rock You need to put it in total darkness, and it takes about 2 months. and a lot of water changes. There are guides on doing it. here is a link to a thread with a guide in it: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=437342

500lbs would be a lot of work, but probably worth it in the end. (would probably cost like 4 grand to replace it if I ordered it at a LFS here)

[Fish Stix]

Two further prices of info that may have an affect on advise given... Since adding the CUC a week or two ago they are anhialating the algae..and in the places where they are pushing it back pink and purple is starting to grow under the new lights.

[joshky]

Put a couple pieces of live rock in a 5g bucket of SW with a heater and a powerhead, leave it in a dark room for a week or so and then test for phosphates. If you don't register any phosphates, then you should be O.K. to keep the rock live, I would still personally want to test all of the rock because some pieces could be worse off than others.

If you are leaching phosphates, you really need to acid bath the rock to salvage it. I would also do as John said and sell some of it off, unless you enjoy the rock wall look, some people do.. But giving coral more room to grow in is becoming more popular lately.

[Fish Stix]

Ok well I put a few pieces in Rubbermaid with a cover we shall see

[whosurcaddie]

Originally Posted by joshky

Put a couple pieces of live rock in a 5g bucket of SW with a heater and a powerhead, leave it in a dark room for a week or so and then test for phosphates. If you don't register any phosphates, then you should be O.K. to keep the rock live, I would still personally want to test all of the rock because some pieces could be worse off than others.

If you are leaching phosphates, you really need to acid bath the rock to salvage it. I would also do as John said and sell some of it off, unless you enjoy the rock wall look, some people do.. But giving coral more room to grow in is becoming more popular lately.

+1 great idea this way you don't destroy the whole system.

If you are gonna move in 2 months there is no point in buying any coral. Get the tank straightened out first then you can make your move and reevaluate after the tank is setup in its new location.

[tkeracer619]

Cooking live rock does not make it non live. It will also remove the algae and excess phosphates, which your tank clearly has.

I would start by adding gfo and sucking as much algae out as you can. It doesn't really look all that bad to me.

[Fish Stix]

Ok awesome, sounds like things are not so bad after all. I know it looks like a lot of rock right now but if I can get it how I have envisioned I think all but the staunchest of minimalist fanatics will be able to appreciate it. As mentioned there are power heads connected to pvc plumbing going behind and through that rock work

[tkeracer619]

BTW I would turn off or reduce the lighting for the time being.