[Colonel Pyle]

I recently moved my 75gal FOWLR tank from one house to another. What a pain in the ass! This tank is almost 3.5 years mature, its inhabitants include a purple tang, flame angel, dottyback, and a medium size maroon clownfish. I currently have the tang and flame angel together in a 29 gal tank with 2 good size pieces of live rock that came out of the 75 gal tank. The 29 has a glass bottom, no sand. The clownfish and dottyback are being housed in a 10 gal tank with a huge piece of live rock and a bare bottom tank. The 75 gal tank had about 80lbs of live rock and a 3" deep sand bed. When I tore down the 75, I threw away all the sand in the tank, and placed the live rock in a huge Rubbermaid tub. Unfortunately, the live rock was not stored in water and dried out. I mixed up some new saltwater and cleaned off all the dried up rock and rinsed it well in the saltwater. I bought new Southdown sand and placed a 2" deep sand bed in the 75 along with all the old live rock. Damn, what a long post! My question is....the remaining pieces of live rock that are sustaining my fish in the smaller tanks, can they be transfered to the newly set up 75 gallon tank and seed the tank with enough good bacteria to keep all 4 fish alive in the new tank? The new tank has been up and running for almost a week now, the tank is crystal clear. I really dont want to keep the fish in their smaller environments any longer.
Thanks for the suggestions...
Pyle

[leebca]

WELCOME to Reefland, Pyle!

The old live rock is essentially somewhere between base rock and dead rock. The live rock with microbes on it will seed the old LR with the proper bacteria -- but so will time. The rock just becomes surface area for bacteria.

Unfortunately you loose most of the live rock's best feature and that is its ability to remove nitrates through denitrification. So it will be good for handling ammonia and nitrites, making nitrates. If nitrates isn't your concern, then use the old rock. But if you want your 75 returned to the its original maturity, it would be best to use live rock.

Rocks we put in our aquarium that come from the sea/ocean are remarkable! See What is Live Rock, Anyway?

Good luck! Come by here often. Visit all the Forums!