Wet Live Rock Survivability

Guns286 · Jul 6, 2022

I’m slooooowly getting to the point, in my aquarium build, where I will be ready to aquascape. My plan is to use 40% wet live rock and 60% dry inert rock (probably Marco). I’m hoping to order the wet live rock from KB Aquatics, which comes packaged it water, I believe.
I’d like to break up the Marco and reassemble it into whatever godaweful thing I can come up with. Then incorporate the wet live rock into the “sculpture”.
Since I won’t know what the live rock will look like, before I get it, I can’t preplan the design. So, I’m wondering how long a piece of wet live rock can survive out of water? What would be your process for incorporating the 2 rock types together?

Abarge16 · Jul 6, 2022

I had picked up some local live rock from a fellow reefer and took it home out of water in a styrofoam container I forgot I had it with after I stopped somewhere cranked the heater in the car a drove for an hour and half. It was 115 degrees inside the container rock was still moist. All the macro algea survived there was live pods and asterina stars I think as long as you dont let it dry completely you should be good for an hour or two

Guns286 · Jul 6, 2022

Great! Thank you

fish farmer · Jul 8, 2022

I used Marco cement with live and dry. That cures pretty quick. Just cover the live with a wet towel. Back in the day we would get Fiji live rock wrapped in wet newspapers and stuff would still live.

ShawnM24 · Jul 9, 2022

Just use a sprayer bottle with tank water to keep it wet as you work with it that’s the approach I used and it works

HudsonReefer2.0 · Jul 9, 2022

Chk out Ryan’s talk from RAP NY. Great info. Even if u get the KP I’d cook it, dark cure before adding it and then add a nice mixture of pods to help w the ugly part of the cycle. U will b adding some ugly components but it’s limiting them and adding means to keep them in chk which will benefit u the most