Ok before I get into my question I'll have to tell a little story. Please bare with me,ok back when I had my "accident" I had 50 to 60 pounds of Live Rock. To make a long story short when I came home that fateful day it was DEAD!!!! THE WHOLE TANK DEAD!!!! Now that I'm over it(kinda) and getting back in could a person take water change water and use it to bring back dead rock? What I would do is put my WC's into a food safe barrel with powerhead and heater and keep it going til I had enough to start filling a tank and putting dead rock back in also with the 50 lbs of sand that died as well. Once I start putting it all back in the tank I'll re wire my 400 Watt Halide. Once I had it all full with water and rock I would seed with live sand outta my 30 gal. The only reason I'd like to try this is too see if it would work and I'm too cheap to go buy 60 Gallons of RO(should have never sold my RO unit).
Good idea or bad? Maybe I've just drunk too much coffee today!!!!

Yes that would work although it would be a slow process. But it would work none the less.

What I would do is place the rock and sand back in the tank, add about 10 lbs of Live Sand too it maybe a couple of tennis ball sized pieces of live rock and fire that bad boy right back up. In a matter of weeks you should have a nice healthy sand bed and live rock and start seeing some coralline algae again.

I notoriously use sun dried rock and dry sand for my tanks, basically starting with a sterile tank, and just add a few pounds of GARF grunge. This not only adds a diverse colony of much needed Bacteria, but also seeds the tank with many benefical spores of coralline algae and many other desirable froms to the tank as well as you usually get a few Bristle Worms, Pods and such to get some fauna going in your tank too! When done to a tank under optimal conditions you can not tell the difference 6 months down the road from such a tank and one that used straight up live sand and live rock from the start.

If you want to learn more about the GARF Grunge you can go to Geothermal Aquaculture Research Foundation and reseach it for yourself and decide if this is something for you or not. Not endorsing them/it, just hate to mention something and not provide a link for you to research it yourself if interested.

Normally the reason you do water changes is because the water you are disposing of is higher than ideal in nitrates, phosphates and others and depelted of other necessary minerals and supplements needed for good growth.
Why put your rock in this?

Spend the money on good water and fresh salt then as already mentioned add something like Garf Grunge or a few cups of real live sand from a friends system, either will jump start start the rock pretty quickly.

Thanks for the info. I know about water changes and that was not what I was asking. I do not need this tank to be up fast. I was thinking of doing a journal from dead to alive. I still hve a bit to think of what I will do with the tank and what I want the tank to be. Thanks again for the info and I will come back to this thread when all if figured out!!

Why did everything in the tank die?

FWIW, in addition to the"critters" what makes live rock IMHO work is the algae on the rock. Not the anaerobic bacteria. So other then pods and such, the rock will become effective very quickly as the algae (hopefully corraline) regrows.


my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Ok I'm back to this. Been busy workin. Anyways got the 33 up and running.
I pretty much used all the dead rock and sand I had. Threw a refugium
and a skimmer on it aswell. For light I'm using a 250 watt halide. Tanks been running since Aug 1,there is one rock that is showing pinkish/purpleish algae.

Glad to hear it. Are you running the skimmer now?

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All information supplied is in my humble opinion. I am sure there is always someone out there who knows more then I, that will chime in soon.

Now back to trying to figure out how to combine my passions and either make an aquarium that does 0-60 in under 3 seconds, or ride motorcycles in aquariums....

I have only run the skimmer a couple times just to make sure it was working.

On a now defunct site one user had some problems with a skimmer and had to turn it off for a few days. Bout a week later he noticed the macros in the refugium and corals were doing better. So he left it off. And the macros and corals continued to do better.

Then he tried skipping a couple of water changes. Again both the corals and macros did better.

So eventually he ran with a refugium, no skimmer, and no water changes. at when the site went off line and been running that way for almost a year.

But that's just his (and my) observation.


worth at most .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

I was just curious figuring at this point in the tanks life I would have been shocked if there was anything accumulating in the skimmer?

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All information supplied is in my humble opinion. I am sure there is always someone out there who knows more then I, that will chime in soon.

Now back to trying to figure out how to combine my passions and either make an aquarium that does 0-60 in under 3 seconds, or ride motorcycles in aquariums....

Quite a few people I know (as well as myself) don't use skimmers and just stick with a refugium and WCs as needed. Seems to work great.

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When in doubt, do a water change.

Actually be shocked cause there is(was) crap in the collection cup. I should have taken a pic but cleaned it before I thought about it.

I wasn't going to run the Skimmer either just use the refugium and WC's but it was here so I figured why not. I too know some people run them some don't...all a matter of preference I guess.

If anyone cares I can post a couple of pics.

Yeah, pics would be great

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When in doubt, do a water change.

Ok here are a couple,any comments are welcome!!! I guess now I could be upgrading to a 130!!

i dont run a skimmer the only time i have ever ran it was when i had a nitrate spike on the 70 think it was a fish i never found he was old though but and even then was a small spike i still keep one on hand just in case but i have a 40 gallon sump on the 110 and a 20 gallon on the 70 they all do just fine

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