slogan315
Active Member
I recently bought a running system from someone trying to get out the hobby. It was running at their home when I picked it up. The livestock included 2 damsels, a small torch, 2 small duncan colonies, and a toadstool leather. It took about 5 hours to get it broken down, transported to my house, and set back up. The livestock travelled in a large Rubbermaid with the existing water. It was about 60-70 degrees outside during that time, so presumably the water temp reached around 60-65 before they were back in the tank and heated.
The 2 damsels didn’t make it. Most of the coral seems to have survived. The torch and Duncans went white but are coming back. The polys are completely out on the Duncans and look healthy after a few days of the system being stable again. The toadstool leather stem got torn as it was connected to 2 stacked rocks. The head seems to be perking up again.
All that preface is for these questions. It came with about 30-40lb of live rock. With a used setup where the rock and livestock didn’t travel optimally, should I dose any bacteria, or just let it recover? The ammonia is reading about 0-0.2. Nitrates at 0. The damsels died shortly after going in the tank, and are in the aquascape where I can’t get to them. These are my current ammonia source I’m guessing.
Another question about cycling. Right now the scape is just an ugly pile of rocks to let everything recover. I want to do a more intricate scape with dry rock and epoxy soon. What is the best practice for switching my live rock out for my dry scape? I was thinking of putting in the dry scape and fitting in as much of the existing live rock to not crash the system. But how much removed is too much? Right now the system is bare bottom. The end goal would be none of the existing live rock in the display. I have a small sump with some bricks and rubble.
thanks!
The 2 damsels didn’t make it. Most of the coral seems to have survived. The torch and Duncans went white but are coming back. The polys are completely out on the Duncans and look healthy after a few days of the system being stable again. The toadstool leather stem got torn as it was connected to 2 stacked rocks. The head seems to be perking up again.
All that preface is for these questions. It came with about 30-40lb of live rock. With a used setup where the rock and livestock didn’t travel optimally, should I dose any bacteria, or just let it recover? The ammonia is reading about 0-0.2. Nitrates at 0. The damsels died shortly after going in the tank, and are in the aquascape where I can’t get to them. These are my current ammonia source I’m guessing.
Another question about cycling. Right now the scape is just an ugly pile of rocks to let everything recover. I want to do a more intricate scape with dry rock and epoxy soon. What is the best practice for switching my live rock out for my dry scape? I was thinking of putting in the dry scape and fitting in as much of the existing live rock to not crash the system. But how much removed is too much? Right now the system is bare bottom. The end goal would be none of the existing live rock in the display. I have a small sump with some bricks and rubble.
thanks!
