Let the games... BEGIN!!

[oceandeep85]

Warning! Look away if you don't like carnage.

Long story short, tonight, I not only bleached my live rock, but I boiled it, baked it at 450 for 45 mins, rinsed it in freshwater a few times, scrubbed the hell out of it, dried it with my girlfriend's mega-powerful (hotter than expected) hairdryer, let it dry some more and added it back to the tank.

Why?

Well... I'm a noob. A panicky, no good, rotten noob.

I'd had the tank (a 10 gallon nano... 20" long, 10" wide, 12" high) up and running with two damsels and a large piece of live rock I got from PetCo for a few weeks. I tested the water twice a day and was excited to see the cycling process move along rather swiftly. I credited it to the beginning foundation of 10 lbs of live sand (Caribsea Caribbean Oolite) and about a 3 lb chunk of live rock and one blue damsel. Everything was coming along fine. Eventually Ammonia was 0, nitrite was barely detectable and nitrate was around 10ppm. I felt like I was on easy street.

Now, remember, this was before I found this club and these threads, so, at the time.. craigslist was my best friend.

I bought about 10lbs of tonga live rock from a guy whose wife was making him get out of the hobby. He sold it for $2 a lb. I thought it was a good deal. I visited his house, saw the setup and he had a gorgeous 6 year old maroon clown, a beautiful Niger Trigger and a purple dottyback that all seemed happy as could be. No coral, but the tank was in good shape. The Live rock had that distinctive smell and was covered in beautiful coralline algae and lots of short green hair algae. I brought it home, got a rough idea of how I wanted it to look and added it to my display.

Well, several days after adding it to the tank, I noticed a MASSIVE upswing in my ammonia. My damsels rarely made any appearances, my water was no longer crystal and my Nitrites at 0 and nitrates still around 10ppm. Somehow, my cycle had crashed- and I mean Hindenburg crashed. Like, airbag testing crashed. I've never seen shades of green on my ammonia test like I had recently.

I did massive water changes for days and it had little to no effect. I ran O2 through my powerhead at night to at least make sure the water was getting some oxygen and I'd been dosing Prime several times a day just to keep the damsels alive. I feel like what I had was 10 gallons of Windex and not a saltwater habitat to be proud of. I honestly feel like a fool.

So, I figured, if I have to restart my cycle anyway, and sadly I'll probably end up losing one or two of the damsels and even sadder, probably the one or two pieces of coral (frogspawn and GSP- GSP really hadn't opened much, if at all, since I got it, but I LOVED the frogspawn), I might as well erase whatever was made of the live rock before and start fresh. At least this way I know I can kill any parasites or nasties that might have been living on the rock. Unfortunately, I definitely also killed what little beneficial biologics were in the rock as well.

So, I've re-'scaped the tank and added everything back in just a few moments ago. I'll keep everyone updated on how things are going.

This evening after massive water changes: Ammonia 8ppm
Nitrites 0ppm
Nitrates >5 ppm

I'll add some pictures of the new rock work as well. :sick:

Kind of in need of a little pick me up- someone please tell me I can recover and still have a beautiful little reef in the future.

 

[jc_k]

You can have a beautiful little reef IF you get a bigger tank.......j/k. Yes you can have a awesome pico reef it just takes time and everyone always makes mistakes and everyone is always going to have a problem throughout this hobby. Usually you shouldn't start a nano tank unles you have quite a lot of experience. In my opinion you should get a bigger tank. A 10gallon pico will need lots of care and you will really need to watch the water because it can change fast. This hobby is all about patience. As for the coral... Well you will just have to wait or give it back to someone. Good luck man.

 

[jdavid]

JC_k;968612 wrote: You can have a beautiful little reef IF you get a bigger tank.......j/k. Yes you can have a awesome pico reef it just takes time and everyone always makes mistakes and everyone is always going to have a problem throughout this hobby. Usually you shouldn't start a nano tank unles you have quite a lot of experience. In my opinion you should get a bigger tank. A 10gallon pico will need lots of care and you will really need to watch the water because it can change fast. This hobby is all about patience. As for the coral... Well you will just have to wait or give it back to someone. Good luck man.

+1. There's a saying in the reefkeeping hobby, nothing good happens fast

Patience, you must have!

So, you realize you need a bigger tank. We've been over that. And you have a plan to make that happen in due time. But right now we need to focus on the livestock and the tank you've already got, and not add anything else.

I suggested 1-2 gallon water changes/day and siphoning out any extra food left over from feeding. This is how I maintain my rock-less 10g temporary home for my 2 clownfish. In the same tank I have about the same amount of coral you have in yours. I'm also running carbon on my 10 gallon

 

[heathlindner25]

in the future don't make it a habit of boiling rocks...... could be detrimental to your future

 

[joseayes]

heathlindner25;968630 wrote: in the future don't make it a habit of boiling rocks...... could be detrimental to your future

Heath, wondering why? If you got the rock dried out.

 

[heathlindner25]

if there's any poisonous life growing on it it can be dangerous to boil the rocks

 

[heathlindner25]

did you boil them in tap water? because that could create some other problems too

 

[oceandeep85]

Yeah-- JDavid... if you don't hear from me about upgrading within the next few months, it's because I've fallen off the face of the earth. I'm so ready to move into the 30-40 gallon range.. even if I don't have a ton of rock work.. just to have more water volume.

I didn't really want to take the live rock out to begin with, to be perfectly honest. Truthfully speaking, I panicked and it seemed like the best solution at the time.

I guess I shouldn't say that I 'boiled' them. I poured boiling water from a kettle over them when they were in a bucket.

They were submerged in a pretty strong bleach/tap water solution for about an hour, hour and a half

I also baked them at 450 for close to 45 mins

They were plenty dry before I added them back to the tank

Update: This morning, for the first time in days, my damsels were out in full view swimming around

 

[oceandeep85]

<p style="text-align:left">Ok, so, here's the new rock scape.

 

[oceandeep85]

Well, forgive me.. But you seem to be one of the only ones who's ever mentioned anything of the sort, so, I disagree that it was careless since I didn't know. You honestly think I'd purposefully put myself or loved ones in jeopardy? Further, I fail to see how what I did is any different than washing it and drying it out and putting it back in the tank like so many others.

You know what would be cool and helpful? Giving me guidance on how I could have done things better and providing some sort of explanation about why what I did was dangerous instead of calling me careless...

Thanks for the input.. I guess.

 

[mcphock]

Move your damsels to someone else.

 

[ringo®]

OceanDeep85;968688 wrote:
You know what would be cool and helpful? Giving me guidance on how I could have done things better and providing some sort of explanation about why what I did was dangerous instead of calling me careless...

I think what he's getting at was that you can never be sure what kind of life forms are dwelling in the rock. By boiling it / baking it, you're opening yourself to possible vapors and fumes of some potentially toxic substances.

 

[oceandeep85]

I understand that, but now I'm freaking out that I exposed myself or my girlfriend to something extremely hazardous when I thought I was doing the right thing by my tank. I'm wondering if I'll be able to use my oven again or if I should evacuate and quarantine my apartment.

I actually was happy that maybe I was killing off some of the bad stuff while I was doing it. I don't appreciate being called 'very careless' when I had no idea. ...and I HAD done research. Other threads and sites are FULL of folks who boil, bleach, bake, dry, sing to, cuddle their live rock. Some even recommend it. NOTHING warning anyone about poisoning... I was just trying to give the live-rock the full assault. Fortunately, I'm comforted by the fact that I had the apartment well ventilated and I used thick gloves the whole time and nothing living in the apartment has displayed any flu-like symptoms or anything negative.

I looked up some articles on the poisoning and I feel awful. But you have to understand, as a Noob, I DID do the research, but unless you specifically search Palytoxin poisoning, you aren't going to find many folks that discourage you from doing these things for any other reason than it'll kill the bio filter. I've even been texting my GF all morning now to make sure she feels ok.

Like I said.. I took it out, let it soak in a strong bleach solution for an hour or more, then scrubbed it, rinsed it really well, let it dry, poured a little boiling water over it in the sink later, then baked it.

It looks to me like the real trouble occurs when you take large chunks of active live-rock and drop it into something that will aerosolize it like boiling water, or I suppose baking. My initial findings are indicating that if one were to dry it out thoroughly and/or bleach it and dry it, there shouldn't be a problem. It's the act of these critters dying in an environment and releasing defense mechanisms that can then enter your airway or open wounds that will cause the issue.

I didn't know. Rest assured it will never happen again.

I appreciate the input, but honestly, it's still not helpful to just point fingers at someone for their actions without offering any clarifying information. Just FYI. That's not how anyone learns anything and the primary reason why I didn't want to post this thread in the first place. I was encouraged by others to do so.

 

[oceandeep85]

Sorry, all. Basset, Ringo... I'm not trying to be overly sensitive or defensive. I know you're just trying to give me good advice. It just scared the **** out of me, you know? Like, imagine you think you're really doing something good and right and you find out that there was even a 1% chance you put yourself and your loved one in big danger...

Fortunately, that was not the case here... but still. I just had no idea. I really feel like a fool.

 

[ringo®]

No apology needed on my end. Everybody makes mistakes. Everyone's ok, so let's just chalk this one up to the advantages of doing copious amounts of research.

 

[oceandeep85]

Very cool. I'm good with that. Again, I apologize Bassett.

Luckily enough, the guy I bought the rock from was FOWLR. No coral at all, esp. zoas or palys. I certainly don't have either of them. Now, that doesn't remove the possibility that at some point in its lifespan it couldn't have had something dangerous crawl into it and hang out and the act of pouring boiling water on it or baking it could have then released toxic compounds but, the girlfriend is fine, I'm fine and so I guess we got lucky.

Also, I really do try not to use anything from the kitchen when I'm working with my tank, other than the sink.. so I guess it couldn't hurt to give the sink and the baking sheet I used a nice scrubbing when I get home from work.

I promise that I'm very dedicated to this hobby and to learning and I feel awful for such a mistake. I am in no way the kind of person that would act with such reckless disregard for my own personal safety or the safety of others and I'll never do it again. I'm actually a little upset at the industry for not making some of the dangers more widely known.

In the future, what would more experienced members have done? I've pretty much figured that, the new live rock was adding ammonia as fast as I could take it out. So, hopefully now that it's been stripped clean, my cycle can catch back up again to where it was.

 

[declanisadog]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2253493">http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2253493</a>


Best/safest way to kill live rock is to let it sit in the sun for a while.

 

[oceandeep85]

Yeah. I'll be doing that in the future, or just letting it dry somewhere for a few days.

Kinda sucks that we get so much rain here.. might limit the times you can actually dry the live-rock out in the sun.

 

[oceandeep85]

..I have so... so.. SO much to learn... haha. Fortunately, when it doesn't scare the pants off of you, I find it fascinating.

But, gladly, it seems like everything's cool. My GF texted to me a bit ago to tell me how much better the damsels are looking too. Bright and happy and swimming around throughout the rockwork like usual. I may have gotten very lucky here and actually made the right move for my setup, but I am NOT cool with the risk associated. I really appreciate you telling me.

I may give the oven a scrub and certainly run some stuff through the dishwasher and clean up the sink and in the future I'll let mother nature do the work.

I guess I took two steps forward and one step back. I'll be only buying dry base rock in the future.

So, if I work with JDavid (Josh) to get a nice rig going in a few months, I'll take the stuff from my existing tank, but any additional rock will be dry base rock from a LFS like Pure Reef or from someone I can trust on here.

I'm going to check things out when I get home and obviously test the water and I can let everyone know where I'm at if you're interested.

 

[oceandeep85]

all of this because of some live-rock off of craigslist and a crashed cycle...