How long can cured live rock stay in a reef tank before it has to be rotated out?

[Coral]

heard varying oppinions on this one...

How long can cured purple live rock stay in main reef tank until you must rotate and get new rock?

I want to set up a new tank and dont know what to do. I dont want to buy all this purple live rock from an est tank from someone in this society, but dont want to find out its to old and I cant use it. (hes had it for 11 yrs and its beautiful) Why do you have to rotate it in the first place? What happens if u dont? How often SHOULD you rotate it? If I get it and put it in my tank and it recycles, isn't that considered rotation? My tank is new and I want to use dry sand with cured live rock.

Please advise.

Thanks!

 

[jamesdong009]

:w to the club.

This is the first that I've heard of. Would you have any links to rock rotation?

 

[delta]

indefinitely

Sand on the other hand, sometimes it is best to take a bit out here and there and replace it with some new livesand (not the bag stuff at petco) to
keep the sand bed healthy

 

[ava420]

I myself have never herd of rotating rock... Sand yes as said above.. I think cause it can build up nitrates over time but I'm not really sure. Rock thou is good for life... Jm2c

 

[sal]

where on earth did you hear that from? the only thing that happens to live rock is bristle worms break it down to pieces, but after 11 years there must not be anything there to deteriorate it so enjoy it! btw, the only reason it's called ''live'' rock is beacause of what lives inside or outside of the rock.

 

[lisa foster]

I have also never heard of that I also did not know you had to rotate the sand out. How often should you do that?

 

[delta]

I have also never heard of that I also did not know you had to rotate the sand out. How often should you do that?

You don't have to rotate the sand out. But I do and a know few others that do it to make sure the sand bed stays active and healthy. I also add LR rubble and cups of sand
from other tanks from time to time.

For the sand bed rotation this is just a small section not the whole sand bed

 

[lisa foster]

How many years before you do this? Do you siphon it out? I get nervous with that because when I disturbed my bad a year ago I had an ammonia spike and lost 3/4 of everything. I see some areas where I could add sand.

 

[delta]

Yes you siphon it out use a PVC pipe to put the new Live sand in. There are a few vendors thatwill ship small amoputns of Live sand to you.
You need to be ready with water changes but you do this in small batches.

I have never lost anything do to sand disturbances. Do you have a Deep sand bed? Did you have a lot of algae issues? DO you have a sand stirrers?

 

[lisa foster]

The rock had sunk into my sand bed some areas 2-3 inches. When I pulled the rock up the sand went everywhere. I did not know any better so I did not do a water change next morning everything was melting. I was pulling rock to add to a new tank. I do not have algae anywhere in my tank I never have. I have alot of nassarius snails back then I also had a sand sifting starfish.