Dry Rock....how long to cycle & color up?

[duganderson]

I'm thinking about re-doing my aquascape with marco dry rock.

How long does dry rock like this take to cycle for fish and coral if you add live bacteria?

How long does it typcially take for this rock to color up so it does not look white?

I could put a few pieces of my current rock with the dry rock to help with the cycle or coloring.

Thanks, Doug

[Bpb]

If you add a ton of bacteria and even vodka/vinegar dose the tank to start off, it’ll be fish ready quickly. Just verify it with an ammonia test. If you’re hoping to sustain coral you may be disappointed. In my experience corals just don’t do very well in newly established rock. Too volatile is the microfauna in the first year


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[mcgyvr]

1 to 6 weeks to cycle..
Could be a year or more before it "colors up" depending on your definition of that..
All depends on many factors...

[RioReefr]

Define "coloring" ?

You will see green algae in a week. If you mean pretty pink and purple coralline algae...then sad to say but at least a year. I put a good sized chunk of "dry rock" in an established tank back in September '17 and just now I see one little spot of purple coralline algae forming. I believe you need to allow all the phosphates to leech out of the rock before any coralline would grow on it.

You can try one of those "coralline algae in a bottle" methods, but even they state everything has to be perfect water parameters and would take 8 weeks to see some specks to form. Unfortunately, Nature takes it time.

[RobZilla04]

6 months to a year in most cases.

[NikonN8]

Depends too on what's in the system with all your white rocks. If you seed with a significant fraction of true live rock (25-50% of your base) it's probably going to color up faster than if you have only a little in there.

Also, if you want coralline to pop up faster, keep your calcium and mag a little high (like upper levels of recommended, nothing nuts) and aim for system stability.

You'll get shades of brown and green in a few days after the cycle is done, maybe a week, but much past that will take time. I'm not sure I agree with 1yr+, I have always had coralline making itself known in 6-8 weeks. If you REALLY want it to get going, when your numbers are good you should turn off your return for a few hours and take a coralline-covered rock from the LFS and scrape it in front of a powerhead. It will circulate through your system and start seeding various spots on your rocks quickly. The more you can start with the faster it will populate your tank.

Be careful what you wish for though, cuz once it gets going....

Oh, and start your corals with something tough like a zoa colony. Watch them, if they do well you can move toward the other types. IME they make a good canary.

[Fourstars]

One year sounds about right. Get some live rock, or rock from a buddies tank and it will be much faster.

[Turtlesteve]

I'd concur with the 1 year estimate. I started with dry rock 6 months ago. It looks decent right now but has at most 10% coralline coverage. In the same time period, the overflow box is about 90% covered.

[alton]

One of the main reasons members turn to liverock from Florida. You spend a month kicking out hitch hikers but at least you have awesome rock to look at the rest of the time.