dry rock

[dwd5813]

I ordered some of the dry Fiji rock from TwoPartSolution, and I am wondering what preparations i should make before i add this rock to my system. info on the rock can be found here (http://www.twopartsolution.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=160) , at their website. I am wondering what if anything i should do to this rock before i add it to the tank. should i scrub it down, attempt to "cure" it at all, etc. basically, I'm wondering if it needs any preparation at all, or if, when i get the rest of my equipment and finally get water in the tank, I should just add the rock and be good to start the cycle. I plan on picking up a few pieces of the best LR i can find locally to seed the dry rock. Since it's a brand new tank, I was thinking that I would let the rock be the only thing in there for a while, with all the equipment running, and then add sand after, and let the cycling continue until i get a decent algae bloom, at which point I will start adding clean up critters, and continue on from there.

sorry if there is too much information there for the question at hand, but i figured a bit of extra info never hurt anything. if i didnt mention something that you would like to know, please ask.

so whatcha think?

thanks!

[demonsp]

If this is a new setup then little preperation will be needed. If you can add as much LR upfront as you can and add the substrate then let it all cycle for best results.
Now you can dip the rock before adding to remove any unwanted hitchhickers. And remove any visable algea and sponges. They say sponges are safe but any sponge around my coral limited growth and even killed 1.
Also a good rinse would help.

[skriz]

wash the rock to make sure there is no dirt, etc. then put it in.

demon's post refers to live rock, which is not what you have.

[clavery]

Yes, I'd make sure to rinse the rock out really well with either clean salt water or some ro/di water, and be very patient with the cycle. Figure 2 - 3 months for a full cycle with dry rock.

[jadeguppy]

I would use ro/di water to wash the rock. Salt isn't needed for that since it is dry rock. If you add a few pieces of live rock, 2-3 months shoud be plenty of time for all the rock to have established bacteria colonies. Doing a substrate trade is a great way to get helpful critters too. Just be sure that whomever you get substrate from doesn't have any issues that might transfer to your tank. That is usually not much of a problem with established hobbiests.

[wooden_reefer]

Be sure to cycle the dry rock quite well with just bacteria seed and a source of ammonia before adding the uncured liverock.

The seeds from any uncured live rock that you are going to buy will add "biodiversity", it is better not to kill more than necessary with high ammonia during cycling. You do not need to have any live rock to have just bacteria seed. Bacteria seed is very easy to obtain.

You can get a bacteria seed very easily. Just a handful of live sand from an established tank will do.


If you absolutely cannot get any live sand, you can even use garden soil. Dig up a handful of moist garden soil; add RO water; stir very well for a few minutes; pour the top into your tank; retain most of the sediment. You should delay adding salt to your tank; bring up the salinity gradually so that the soil bacteria have time to adjust. Works. There is no separate saltwater and freshwater nitrification bacteria; they just need time to adjust.

[dwd5813]

i should be able to find a source for some live sand. so it sounds to me like the thing to do is rinse off any dirt and debris that i can from the dry rock i get using ro water, add the rock to the tank, add saltwater, add sand/ live sand, turn on equipment and add an ammonia source. then sit back for a while and monitor the cycle. add true live rock once initial cycle is complete, and wait for any mini cycling to occur. then proceed slowly with cuc, and other critters.......

sound about right? did i leave anything out?

[wooden_reefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10780191#post10780191 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dwd5813
i should be able to find a source for some live sand. so it sounds to me like the thing to do is rinse off any dirt and debris that i can from the dry rock i get using ro water, add the rock to the tank, add saltwater, add sand/ live sand, turn on equipment and add an ammonia source. then sit back for a while and monitor the cycle. add true live rock once initial cycle is complete, and wait for any mini cycling to occur. then proceed slowly with cuc, and other critters.......

sound about right? did i leave anything out?

If you use both a bacteria seed and a source of enough ammonia, there won't be "mini-cycling".

Do you really want your livestock to endure mini-cycling?

You don't need mini-cycling. Add a bacteria seed and enough fish food to decay. One small shrimp finely chopped or blended into milk for every 50 gals of water. For fish tank, repeat once or twice ten days apart. The cycle will be a strong one with the resulting nitrification capacity high enough to have no mini-cycling.

With a reef tank, min-cycling may be acceptable. For fish, mini-cycling is a bad idea. Some fish can endure mini-cycling, some can't, aka new tank syndrome.

[dwd5813]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10780456#post10780456 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wooden_reefer
Do you really want your livestock to endure mini-cycling? <a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10780191#post10780191 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dwd5813
add true live rock once initial cycle is complete, and wait for any mini cycling to occur. THEN proceed slowly with cuc, and other critters.......

i completely agree with the idea that i do not want any of my livestock to endure any part of the cycle. i dont plan on adding any livestock whatsoever to this tank until all the rock is in place and the cycle is 100% complete. what i was trying to convey was the potential for a small ammonia spike when adding the second batch of rock. if it does not happen at all, then my wait time before adding clean up critters will be diminished. if it does, then i will not have any livestock losses because there will not be any livestock in the tank yet. hope that makes more sense. Thanks for the replies!

[pikachusalad]

I bought dry rock from marco rocks...I was just going to let it cycle, but there was SOOOO much dead stuff on it, it kept making my curing vats into thick, gray, foot-smelling, soup.

I ended up pressure washing it and THEN cycling/seeding it with a little fish food and a few chunks of LR from my sump, bunch of water changes to get rid of the tap water (from the pressure wash). That seemed to...not kill anything :)

I guess this is not terribly helpful...but I guess it's nice to have experiences to compare yours to...:)

[dwd5813]

pikachusalad, do you have a pic of what your tank looks like now?

[wooden_reefer]

Say you have thoroughly cycled with 100 lbs of dry live rock, with bacteria seed and repeated application of ammonia. If you then add 10 lbs of uncured live rock recently collected, then even with some dieoff on the uncured live rock, the ammonia level would likely still be zero.

It takes quite a bit to upset a tank just cycled with overcompensation. You can make the nitrification capacity of a recenly cycled tank quite high using the method I described.

[dwd5813]

well that makes sense. thanks wr!

[pikachusalad]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10781328#post10781328 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dwd5813
pikachusalad, do you have a pic of what your tank looks like now?

I do...I just stuck the camera on the charger - I'll post one in a bit...not sure how helpful it will be though. I took all the cool shaped marco rocks and mostly used them as base rock (stacking the "wet" stuff that was already in my tank on top) because the dry stuff kept breaking when I tried to drill holes (for glue and plastic pegs) - I was gonna make some really cool structures out of it... My tank is very young (6 months). The coralline on the "wet" rock I bought is growing pretty well, but it's just starting to show up (nothing bigger than dime sized spots) on the dry stuff. I will note though that it's the dry stuff that's teaming with pods at night (maybe just because it's close to the ground).

[dwd5813]

cool. please share when you are able.

[pikachusalad]

OK...the rocks with purple were the wet ones - they had very little coralline when I first put them in. The misfit rock off to the left I just put in tonight - not sure what to do with it yet - it was infested with aiptasia (I stress the word "was"). Everything else - to the right, under the rocks with purple, and behind (not pictured) was the dry stuff.
http://pikachusalad.com/rfcntrl/fulltank1.jpg

On this pic you can kind of see an example of coralline starting to grow on the previously dry rock (bottom). I should point out that this rock used to be bright white...
http://pikachusalad.com/rfcntrl/coralline1.jpg

[pikachusalad]

I just found this - this is the 25 lbs of previously dry rock just curing after the pressure wash (no seed rock added yet). Notice that even after the pressure wash the water is still a little green... I did a full water change after a couple days of this before adding the "seed" rock.

http://pikachusalad.com/rfcntrl/IMGA0091shrunk.jpg

[dwd5813]

that doesnt look too bad. i think i will be happy with the choice to use this rock. i should know in a couple hours, since it is being delivered today! i cant post pics, but i will come back later and do my best to describe, just in case yer interested.