Live Rock Experiment

[Future]

2 months ago I aquascaped my tank to remove the giant bristleworm I had and remover a rather large (15lb) piece of Fiji LR where the bristle was usually spotted. I didn't really want to toss it to the wind, so I stuck it in a 5gal bucket that I refill with old water change water.

For the first 2 weeks I kept it inside the house where I found I needed both a PH and a heater, it was ugly to look at, in the way and just a real PITA. SOoo.. I moved the bucket out into my screen room, removed the heater and left a PH attached to the bucket.

Now a few months later the water remains crystal clear, the LR looks pretty darn nice with coraline covering the bucket walls and last night I actually found POD's enjoying themselves. There are some brown spots on the LR, but I'm chalking that 1 up to lack of lighting.

I'm somewhat perplexed here because once a week I need to remove water from the bucket to add 1gal. of the DT's old water. There is extremely little evaporation and there is no lighting set up for this at all other than what nature provides (There is 0 direct sunlight, but still normal outside light if that makes sense to anyone)

Tonight when I come home from work, I'll run some water tests to see what/where the levels are standing. If they are where I'm hoping they'll be, I may have some Fiji for sale.

Bad picture here, but a general idea...

[scubadude]

Hi Future
S. Florida generally has a very high humidity level so its very possible you have very little evaporation levels if any. Have you checked your SG lately? See if it has moved any....heck it may have even dropped a tad if you have morning dew in your florida room?!

Very interesting things can happen when you start playing around like you are doing....and its virtually harmless....if you really want to get your big unwanted bristleworm out of the rock you can dip the rock into freshwater and he should pop out of any hole he is in.....the little booger! If you can hook us up with a picture

[Future]

I'll be doing some tests a little later to see how the water levels are. I'll post the results when they're done.

I just wanted the bristle out of my DT, hence the removal of that rock on particular. Needing a little extra space didn't hurt the decision either..ha ha I know that "Vile Beast" is in there somewhere, it doesn't bother me much at all being out of my DT so anyone who gets this LR will be told about him.

You can see pictures of it here Bristleworm Issue

[Future]

OK This was even better than I expected, heck it was so close to perfect it isn't funny

Temp: varies through the day between 80-90
Salinity/SG: 1.030
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrates: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
PH: 8.6
Calcium: 400

Keep in mind this is OLD WATER. I don't top off with fresh, I just exchange 1 gallon when I do a WC on my DT.

Looks like I've got a nice chunk of Fiji up for grabs soon

[Future]

I've decided to continue my experiment and cure bleached rock using only old tank water now. I'll be using the same method.

1 5gal. bucket
1 PH
Fiji rocks that have been sun bleached

as well, I took a nice piece of bleached rock and placed it in with the LR already filled with coraline and the PH.

I only added trace elements to each bucket now, so the fun begins.

I'm going to give the bleached rock bucket 1 week to start changing, it nothing begins to happen, then it's the PurpleUp test to see just what this stuff will do to dead rock.

Below is the nice chunk I placed in the LR bucket.

[Future]

Update:
Slowly algae has been moving over to the dead rock. So slowly in fact that it's only 1 spot roughly the size of a dime. Nothing to get excited about yet.

The all dead rock bucket is showing no signs of anything. I'll change the water out with my DT's next WC, and add Purple Up and 1-2 pieces of rubble rock covered in coraline.