live rock -> la casa

Hey everyone,

Well I finally found a good deal on live rock. The guy says it's cured and gave my a good price on it. Now, heres the deal. There's about 50-60lbs of rock and the rock is located 30-40 minutes away and I was wondering what would be the best way to get the rock home with having little to no die-off.

Here's my idea,

*Have a tub of salt water sitting at home for the rock with heater and a powerhead
*Get a couple of styrofoam coolers
*Go pick up rock, wrap rock in newspaper and put them in the coolers, I'll put a little tank water in the coolers too, maybe bring a spray bottle?
*Get the rock home and put it in the tub of salt water prepared from before
*Let the rock hang out in the tub until all readings become 0 (NO4, NO2, NO4) which shouldn't be too long since it's cured, right? How long should I wait?
*Then have a go at aquascaping!!;D;D

Am I on the right track? Anything I should do differently, not at all? Is there anything else I should do when the rock is in the tub chillin'?

-Adem

 

JupiterSailfish and I went to Miami a few months back to pick up about 80lbs of live rock. We brought clean 5 gallon buckets with lids and a big igloo cooler. We put as much as we could in the buckets, used the guys water to fill it and put the rest in the cooler. We brought about 12 extra gallons of salt water with us and used that in the cooler with som newspaper as well. The ride home causes the water in the cooler to sloosh around so the rock in there was always getting wet.

 

So like you said, the drive home would make the water slosh around...I didn't think of that! If I just wrap them in newspaper and throw them into the cooler, I think that would be alright, right?

 

Depending on how much water you bring the bottom layer will be submerged so you won't have to wrap those rocks. Ask the guy if he will let you take some of his water or mix 20 gallons and bring it with you. That will reduce the amount of newspaper wrapping you will have to do.

 

anyone else? Do I have the right idea? what else should i do?

 

Move out of Rochester. It's freak'in cold there.

 

haha I'm used to it! It's not too bad

 

if you want 0 die off it needs to stay totally submerged not just wet

depending on the type of rock 80# can be a fairly small physical size, toss it all in a big cooler and soak it, if that isnt an option then what was said above is really your best bet, just keep it as wet as possible, remember taht the rock is porous the entire way through and needs to have lots of water on it to stay wet the whole way through

 

Just to be on the safe side, do you think once i get home, that letting the rock sit in the tub of saltwater for a little while be beneficial?

ok, i plan on bringing a big igloo cooler instead and have that filled up with salt water, and maybe i can get some water from the guy i'm buying the rock from...

 

might not be a bad idea, give it a week or 2 to kind of re-cure whatever died off, I'm not a huge fan of buying Live rock then immediately tossing it in my tanks anyway especially if you already have something alive in the tank it's going in