How long can I leave my rocks without water?

[ErikVR]

Hi all,

I'm planning to rescape my tank before I start getting corals. The tank has been running for 6 months.

Is it possible to leave the rocks out of the water for 15-30 minutes or would that be enough to kill off bacteria? Should I get bins with salt water instead? (That would be a lot of hassle with this much rock work)

 

[7of9]

I’d get bins with water, myself, unless you’re going to really hurry. Having them in water would help me be able to take them time to get things to how I really wanted them without worrying about die off.

 

[w8lifts]

Always did bins personally but you could wrap them in wet paper if you worried about it

 

[Alexraptor]

Definitely bin them.

Honestly if it were practical I'd even even pay extra to have them immersed in seawater during shipping, already while buying them.

 

[knightnsd]

wet towels should suffice for a short period, that is what I did with my live rock, especially if they stick out of the water in the bin I would toss a wet towel over them

 

[I never finish anythi]

Use saltwater in a spray bottle and spray them every few mins to keep damp

 

[brandon429]

I have a video of my entire reef drained for 33 mins
All corals, rocks, drained on straight shot

In Fiji they're exposed 12 hrs during tide changes / something like that.

 

[brandon429]

If you did the bottle misting trick i bet it could go two or more days... corals included

The bacteria don't factor in the risk they'll be the last to go and can do a month. We already have posts showing rocks emersed for thirty days still able to nitrify ammonia upon hydration and re test

The cycle won't be affected no matter what we do.

 

[jda]

You can go days for most things, other than larger stuff like shrimp and crabs. You are all good.

Live rock used to come in on freighter from the south pacific to LA and a lot of the stuff on those rocks survived on the deck in the sun during the trip.

 

[blecki]

15-30 minutes will not even be enough for the surface of the rock to dry. At 30 minutes even the crabs will still be fine. Rocks and corals are regularly out of water longer than that, baking in the sun, at low tide on some reefs.

But get some bins anyway because otherwise it's going to make a mess all over your floor.

 

[ErikVR]

Thanks all!

The consensus is that it's alright to have them out of the water for at least a little while. So instead of buying expensive bins that I'll never use again (€100+ per bin... **** everything is expensive these days) I'll just wrap them in salt water soaked towels and keep them wet with a spray bottle. We have natural stone floors so a quick scrub afterwards is no big deal.