Live Rock Day!

Today was the day that Jason and Ben got the live rock into the tank! It wasn't as straight-forward as they hoped, but by the end of the day they had 45 pounds of beautiful live rock, hand-selected by Ben. Here is Jason's report on their day:


"Today started out very exciting for Ben and I. We woke up and found that our tank looked crystal clear! I did a specific gravity reading and it read 1.024. Right where we want a reef setup to be! I spent some more time researching the type of live rock we wanted to add to the tank to have the appropriate hiding places for our future livestock. There are a few different choices (locations like Fiji, Tonga, Caribbean, Marshall Island as well as types of rock like base rock, turf rock, worm rock and reef rock). It looked like the best bets for our tank would be to get some Pacific reef rock like Fiji or Tonga. The Pacific rock tends to be lighter and less densely packed which allows for more water circulation and more surface area for the beneficial bacteria and algae to grow on.

I pulled a water sample from our tank and Ben & I hopped in my car to pick up a few last minute supplies before heading over to Horizon Aquatics. When we arrived at Horizon, I handed over our water sample and then started browsing through the store with Ben. We took a look at what live rock they had to offer and Ben began ticking off the pieces he wanted to get. After a little while, Kat (member of Horizon) called us over and give us the bad news. We had about 0.5 ppm of ammonia in our water sample. This level could be harmful to fish and the owner felt that we should perform a 50% water change with RO (reverse osmosis) water before adding any live rock! Ben was crestfallen.

We returned home and told Allie the bad news. It was almost 5pm (local stores close at 6pm on Sundays) and we needed to do a water change-out before we could add rock. She remembered that Gallery of Pets had their own reverse osmosis set-up and sold pre-mixed saltwater for $1/gal! I called them up and found that they had enough on hand for me to drain and refill our cube with their pre-mix (ammonia-free) saltwater. Ben and I raced over there, picked up 15 gallons of water along with a more accurate ammonia testkit. We then raced back to Horizon Aquatics and purchased 45 lbs of their live rock (which happened to be a mix of Fiji and Tonga reef rock). We had them add a bit of their tank water to the live rock bags since we still needed to do the water change-out at home.

Ben and I arrived back home at about 6:10. I pulled out our siphon and 2 new 5-gallon buckets to begin the change-out. The tank drain was surprisingly easy. I had the tank fully drained in about 20 minutes. I saved about 8 gallons of our old water because I didn't expect to have enough to entirely fill the tank with the pre-mix. I added 10 gallons of the pre-mix to the tank and then Ben and I began arranging the live rock. The 45 lbs made a nice aquascape in the tank with lots of passageways for the shrimp and fish to use. I added the other 5 gallons of pre-mix and only needed about 1 gallon of our old water to top it off. Right about 7pm.

There was probably 1-2 gallons of old mix in the overflow/pump area of the tank, but when all was said and done, we probably did a 75-85% change-out. The live rock itself will probably very quickly bring the ammonia levels down to zero where the tank will be safe to add other creatures. Now we will let the tank cycling for about a week while monitoring ammonia and nitrate levels.

Sidenote: I spoke with the proprietor at Gallery of Pets about the ammonia levels in our tank. The first thing she asked me was did I test for ammonia in our tapwater before using for saltwater mix. I said yes, I had and it read zero. Then she asked, did you test it before or after you added the water conditioner? I said before. She said that was how the ammonia got past us. The ammonia is bound up as chloramine in the tap water. The conditioner breaks that chloride bond and sets the NH4+ free in the water. Ammonia/ammonium can be dealt with by the saltwater bacteria, but it takes time. The chloramine itself is not detected by the ammonia test. I needed to test AFTER the water conditioner was added!"