Is my liverock dead. what is best to do

Hi I have just returned from 5 weeks away to find my heater had gone down. Thankfully I had taken my fish to a friends house so they are fine. My live rock has got things hanging out of it like little worms, all the crabs are dead and the life that was on the LR is now dead.

Can anyone tell me the best thing to do, do I need to re cure the LR if so what is the best way to do it.

I have just bought a trigon 350 which I am getting a sump made so I have got my old spare tank to use to cure the LR if needed.

I am new on here and do not know a lot about marine tanks so go easy on me.

 

That sucks, sorry to here about your misfortune.

You will need to cure your rock before you add any livestock.
I don't see any reason why you wouldn't just cure it in the existing tank.
Your fish are already at your friends house so leave them there till your tank is re-cycled.

I would clean up the rocks and get anything dead out.
Run your pumps and shut your lights off. Let the tank cycle and after your ammonia nitrites and nitrates go down buy a CUC and start running your lights. Then start adding your fish back in.

 

By the way

Welcome abaord !

and when I say CUC that is --clean up crew
(if you didnt know)

 

i would mix up a batch of fresh saltwater and separate it into 2 containers large enough to swish the lr around in. swish the lr really good in the first container then again in the next one and place back into display tank. do all the rock the same way so to completely rinse off the dead stuff and wait for your tank to completely cycle again and then get another clean up crew. after that, slowly add your fish again one by one. just don't rush your bio load and you will be fine. sometimes bad things happen, but it happens to all of us. it just takes time, but you will overcome this.

 

Thanks for speedy reply, I have emptied the tank completely as it had dead stuff floating everywhere. The LR is in black bags to stop it from drying out. I will then fill 2 large buckets with ro water then put salt in then rinse all the LR.

When I put it back into tank do I leave the lights off until the ammonia and nitrites have comedown completely?

whilst we are on this subject I have got a fluval 404 external filter is this needed whilst I am curing the LR or shall I just put my PS (hope that stands for protein skimmer) and power heads on.

 

welcome to 3reef! They said it all

 

No do not run the lights or you will have a crazy algae bloom. Since your CUC is gone. You could turn them on about 4 days before you get a CUC--In my experience- different lights tanks my bloom faster then others.
Leave your skimmer off until the cycle is complete (You may get different opinions on this).
Run your Power heads and your fluval just like you would normally

 

Right that seams like every thing I asked for.
Thanks everyone no doubt I will be back in the future.

Cheers Jon

 

welcome to 3reef

 

If this were me, I would bleach, no doubt about it. I wouldn't waste time curing it because that rock is probably going to leach for quite some time. Bleach will make everything that doesn't have a calcareous structure disintegrate.