Real wild live rock shipped overnight cycle question

[Aquatican]

Due to die off from shipping, would you put live rock that was shipped wet wrapped overnight directly into an established tank, or a short-term curing bin? Wondering if I should fear an ammonia spike in a 4-month old 120g lightly stocked? (NO3 -2-6 ppm PO4 - 0.02ppm). Wasn't going to, then I saw Reefbum caution about this in one of his recent videos.

 

[homer1475]

If it's live rock shipped in water like tampa bay does, I wouild not fear an ammonia spike. If it was just wrapped up in wet towels or paper, you'll have die off and an ammonia spike.

 

[damsels are not mean]

Probably depends on how much rock you are adding compared to the size of tank/amount of rock already in. I don't think there will be much die off, though. Most organisms on the rock are pretty resilient to being damp shipped.

 

[fish farmer]

I'd bin it and give it a good inspection/smell test. I've had rotting sponges that looked fine on day one start to rot days later. I scrub off anything that doesn't look like it will make it.

 

[brandon429]

like that preemptive intercept its perfect

keep the chipped coralline whorls and fanworms no harm in trying some attached benthic algae, but purple tunicates or weird sponges I'd cull. whatever a common awesome reef tank here from the forum shows on its live rock after 4 year is what I'd like to cull to. the good ones have mainly crusty coralline and super thick sps branches as the main eye catcher

 

[ccole]

I’d cure it in a separate bin. I shipped mine with water and over night and still had plenty of die off. My ammonia spiked to 2 ppm in a 90 gallon system and it stunk pretty bad. Lots of stuff survived but I would be afraid to add it to an established tank.

In addition, you can look for hitchhikers that could hurt your reef. I got a mantis and some polyclad flatworms.

 

[Aquatican]

Thank you all for the input! Will bin it!

One more question, would you put a little light over the bin do a black out. Wonder if a black out would lead to more die off and a prolonged cure.

 

[Aquatican]

like that preemptive intercept its perfect

keep the chipped coralline whorls and fanworms no harm in trying some attached benthic algae, but purple tunicates or weird sponges I'd cull. whatever a common awesome reef tank here from the forum shows on its live rock after 4 year is what I'd like to cull to. the good ones have mainly crusty coralline and super thick sps branches as the main eye catcher

Thanks for the intercept and salvage advice.

If there are any vermetid snails, do you think the intercept could take care of them. If not how long do you figure they would take to die out?

 

[brandon429]

I would not expect any attempt to control vermitids to work, they’re on ongoing scourge just like dinos

some get lucky and find a cure, then when we attempt the cures in work threads using other people’s tanks the cure rates drop to ten percent vs 100% claimed by the original finder. This is everyones dino advice, verm advice etc

 

[fish farmer]

Thank you all for the input! Will bin it!

One more question, would you put a little light over the bin do a black out. Wonder if a black out would lead to more die off and a prolonged cure.

I've usually kept a small light on my bin, just to keep macroalgae alive and for visual inspections. Granted I've only cured raw overnighted rock twice, once in tank and once in bin, both times did similar things, run a bit of light, pull rotting things off, do some water changes to try and keep stuff alive. I think my cycles were done in a month.