# Reef rocks in Cichlid tank



## mikeval (Jan 16, 2013)

I am in the beginning stages of setting up a new home for my tanganyikan cichlids. I am moving them from a 54 corner to a 5 foot 95 gallon red sea reefer tank over the next couple months.

I have a reef rock from my reef tank I took down recently that I really liked, it has about about a 10-12" base up about 12" to a really nice shelf that is about 20" across. I really want to use this piece in the tank but concerned with the contrasting looks, my current tank has a few large pieces of texas holey rock that I will be moving over so color wise it should be ok but you know how much rougher reef rock is. I was really hoping to grow Moss on this structure and give it kind of a xen garden feel but from what I have been reading growing plants and moss in a hardwater Rift lake setup is pretty hard.

Anyone have a mix of reef and holey rock in their tank and be willing to share some images?

here is an image, it is the big piece in front covered in hair algae that to me really made this piece so much more natural in the reef tank, it is such an interesting piece I am struggling with trying to incorporate into my scape or forgetting about it and keeping a consistent look. I have bleached and cleaned it up of all organic matter so it will be ready to try and looking for thoughts

rock by Mike Vallee, on Flickr


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## ombos (Aug 14, 2016)

Hi yes I just done the same but with LR and stones if that's any good to you???? i'll post some pics when I get the time to take some if you want me too?? The main prob you'll have or should I say I had with 45kg of old live rock was this: I cleaned it really well, I jet washed all the old corals polyps off etc then bleached with the thin bleach you can buy, then soaked in normal water in a large barrel for two weeks multi water changers and then RO water with multi chances. Popped it in the tank and kept testing. I'm using my old marine tank sump with 15KG alfagrog, 5 litres of seachem matrix media and 10 kg of course coral gravel. I had no or should I say saw no ammonia spike at all, we all know it occurred because it must but I never saw it. The problem was the nitrites, they took 5 weeks to come down which I'm certain was due to all the microscopic life (dead of course) decomposing within the old live rock. So just watch for that pal.


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## mikeval (Jan 16, 2013)

thanks, I have seen a few cichlid tanks with reef rocks since I posted and looks fine, I am really hoping they will match close enough appearance wise to the 50 pounds of texas holey rock I have in my 54 gallon corner to look good together when I transfer everything to the new tank.

5 weeks is a long time, thanks for the heads up as I am sure these reef rocks no matter how clean have plenty of unseen organics in the nooks and crannies.

I had to google alfagrog, 20 years fishkeeping and never heard of it. seems to be a UK thing but definitely will be looking into something like this to add to the sump I will be running.


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## Richje (Oct 10, 2016)

Any updates?

I am shutting down a s/w tank that was only running for 4 months and teh rock was dead at the time, so Im sure there isnt too much life but was hoping to reuse the rock


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## mikeval (Jan 16, 2013)

no updates other than I am planning on using them, I think it it just going to take longer to cycle the tank with all the organic matter that is in all the cracks and crevices but I have established media and rocks from another tank so hoping I can set this up pretty soon and get everything up and running


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## LXXero (May 4, 2016)

so i can report my experience of cleaning off some reef rocks. they had all kinda gunk, dirt, sponges, whatnot, inside of em.

What I did was put them in a bath tub and use a garden-hose type sprayer to blast all the gunk out of them, and used repeated sessions of soaking / spraying.

The soaking would soften everything up, then when you dry em out and spray it again, a ton more would come off. I repeated this 2-3 times over a period of about 2 days and everything was pretty good, not much more would come out after that.

I almost wish i had a low-powered pressure washer or something, that would probably be the best as long as it's something you could turn the power down on it a bit, you aren't trying to blast them apart or put marks into it, haha.

You could bleach them, but then they turn realllly white which i dont entirely like. they will turn back eventually though as they will ultimately get covered in algae. You also have to decontaminate them if you bleach em, maybe soak em again in a tub with some prime dumped in, haha. Bleach is like magic algae remover though, not much survives in it's path.

i think the piece on the right is a tonga shelf


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