LR sealed lid

[bignose]

Hi everyone, I'm back... kind of.

I'm going to keep my LR for the next tank but I want to store with the least amount costs involed. I have a 20G rubber container that I was thinking of using I could weigh down the lid and control the evaporation by the size of the hole in the lid.

What are your ideas on "Live" LR storage that cuts down on electricity and water. water change times, temperature, flow........

Thanks in advance.

[asylumdown]

How long are you storing it for?

Live rock isn't really live, it's just a substrate on which a community of plants, animals, and bacteria live, so the question is what elements of that community are you trying to preserve. If you're trying to preserve 'the whole forest' as it were, it needs roughly the same things that a tank does: tolerable temperatures, sufficient gas exchange, and enough energy (be that light or food) to keep the organisms that make the rock 'live' going.

You can keep rock from dying with nothing more than a heater that keeps the water at reef temperatures and a small powerhead that keeps the water in your bucket moving for a short period of time (a few weeks). If you want all the little critters and micro/macro-algaes on the rock to survive any longer than that you'll need to feed them with something basic like pellets or flakes and provide a source of light. In that instance, you'll want to stay on top of water changes in much the same way you would a tank, otherwise macro-algaes might get out of control.

If you don't want to provide any of that you can simply use the heater and power-head, but after a few months in the dark with no addition of food I dare say there won't be much left than a few populations of bacteria in the rock.

No matter what you do, the set-up doesn't need to be that complicated. The most basic elements you need are the bin, the powerhead, and the heater. If you put your bin somewhere relatively warm, the heater won't have to work so hard, and if you arrange the rocks so that a circular motion of water can be achieved, you don't need that powerful of a powerhead. If you are storing them for a long period, a pretty basic grow light will keep the algae on the rocks near the top of the bin going, and you can toss in a pinch or two of pellets every few days to keep the animal food chain going. With no fish, a little will go a very long way.