Preparing Rock

[Punchanello]

A lot of man-made rock products don't claim to have the same properties as reef rock such as being porous or capable of housing denitrifying bacteria. Is it necessary to cure it?

[mfin77]

Do I need an air stone to cure the rock. Or is the bacteria anaerobic? I'm not using a skimmer just a pump to move water. Thanks

[Ihuntbugs]

I would use a heater too. And keep curing. Definitely put somewhere there is no light to starve of unwanted pests. I did this for about 4-5 months. Killed everything off my rock.


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[Opes]

I recently cleaned old live rock that had dried up from a previous tank. I did a chlorine bath and then soaked and rinsed several times with fresh RODI. I currently have the rock in a trash can with about 10 lbs of new live rock from an established tank. I also used water out of the same established reef. Now all I have going is a power head to move water.

Do I need to do anything else to get this rock ready? I plan on moving into my display in a couple weeks and let it finishing the cycle there.

Should I add some light to jump start coraline?

[jbsengineer]

3. Dry rock. You CAN put it all into the tank and wait 12 weeks for a cycle, but I don’t recommend it.

I'm curious why not? I'm starting fresh and don't mind putting 100+ of pukani is a trash can to cure or in the display tank. I struggle what the difference is between the two since I will do a complete water change either way. Thoughts?

[SFKINNC]

I’m setting up a new 32 Gallon Bio Cube. This will be my first reef tank. Previous marine tanks back in the 70s and early 80s used UG filters and dead coral skeletons that had been bleached. I have some leftover pieces of coral skeletons. I also have some porous rocks that were taken from beaches on the Atlantic coast. Both of these have been used as decorative pieces in my garden and will be washed. I was hoping to use these along with some live rock, dry sand from Petsmart, and maybe some GARF grunge to liven things up a bit. I could use advice on how to do this. Also, any ideas on a good current source for good quality live rock? Thanks!

[wbond]

I'm questioning what I should do here. I took rock out of my tank this spring. I left it outside to dry out and it has since been sitting dry in my basement. Do I have to cycle this in a container with a heater and power head or could I rinse it and put it in my sump? There is some dead coral on it.

[DeepBlueSea]

Originally Posted by wbond

I'm questioning what I should do here. I took rock out of my tank this spring. I left it outside to dry out and it has since been sitting dry in my basement. Do I have to cycle this in a container with a heater and power head or could I rinse it and put it in my sump? There is some dead coral on it.

How many pounds??

I’d throw it in a tub, heater, powerhead and a shrimp to cycle it. Let the dead stuff cook off before placing it into the system.

[wbond]

Thanks for the reply. I'm looking at about 10lbs at most.

Originally Posted by DeepBlueSea

How many pounds??

I’d throw it in a tub, heater, powerhead and a shrimp to cycle it. Let the dead stuff cook off before placing it into the system.

[SFKINNC]

All the dead stuff that dried on your used to be live rock, has to be removed or it will poison the tank’s inhabitants. That means you have to cure it away from the tank just as if it were new.

[ecam]

Originally Posted by SFKINNC

All the dead stuff that dried on your used to be live rock, has to be removed or it will poison the tank’s inhabitants. That means you have to cure it away from the tank just as if it were new.

Agreed... i just finished bleaching my rock to remove organics and am now in the process of rinsing through RODI to leach out phos and and lingering bleach smell.

i will then dry the rock and start aquascaping

[Jefftopgun]

Planning on upgrading from a 100 with close to 100 pounds of rock to roughly a 250 gallon display with 65 gallon sump. I have a few questions.
I plan on doing a flatworm exit, a peroxide, and some sort of freshwater or bayer dip as I transfer the rock. The exit would be of course for my small flatworm problem. Peroxide would be to get the hair algea from the spots I just can't reach, and Bayer / freshwater for the bristle worms that have decided to take over (I started with 3x acid bathed and 2x bleached rock, and bought 1 friggen rock from LFS holy hell).
Will any of this affect the bacteria in the rock? I don't really want to do a full 12 week cycle before I can start slowly moving fish over, my heaters, pumps, and powerheads, even half my lights are all moving over with me. Which means I'm not running both at the same time (well within a few days of each other at least).
Any ideas?

[ddckec6972]

so question. i t seems pretty simple but im still a bit unclear. my tank is been set up and cycling for 1 week. 20 lbs live sand and about 40 lbs of cured live rock...

i found a person that tore down their tank, no way to prove it to be true, anyway. his rock was live with corals 9 days ago from today, rock was placed in 5 gallon bucks of tank water for three days, and now have been out of the water for 5 days now. i contacted him and asked about the rock and he said it is now dry rock cause its been out of the tank. what should i do with this rock? he says since the time frame out of the tanks water i could just simply..get some soft brushes and clean the rock really well then add....

is there a rule of thumb for live rock that has been out for only a few days,

[choss]

I just finished bleaching and acid bathing my rock. Its sitting in warm RODI with some GFO running. First PO test showed .12. What should I target to get it down to before adding to the tank?

[choss]

Second test today and its down to .03. Is it possible the rock is that clean at this point that I can safely add it to the tank?

[CRJ]

Originally Posted by choss

Second test today and its down to .03. Is it possible the rock is that clean at this point that I can safely add it to the tank?

I am going through the same process. What I would do is remove the GFO and see if it creeps back up. Goal is to get it to 0 and for it to stay there without gfo. I will be testing every 3 days on mine to watch it for a rise, at which point I will start GFO, and once I see it back to 0 and stay there I will remove the gfo and check it again a few days later to see if it stayed at 0. if it did, into the tank it goes. if it doesnt, more gfo and retry in a week.

also, whats more important than phosphate is ammonia. if your bucket shows no ammonia or nitrite and only nitrates, it would be safe to add as its showing all has died off and decayed.

[Vlad 1.026]

Good execution!

[choss]

I decided to add the rock to the DT but run it there without lights and measure. I will add some live rock and chaeto this weekend. Watch measure, repeat until I am convinced that all is good. Taking this slow in any case

[Carwin]

I shut down my reef tank 4 years ago and I'm starting up again. I saved my rocks so I have about 100 lbs of rock that has been sitting in a tub in my garage for those 4 years.

What do I need to do to prepare it for use again in my new 90 g tank, which I am in the process of filling with water (that slow drip of the R/O!).

For the moment, I've put the rocks in a 20 gal brute in my basement with saltwater, a heater and a pump for flow. They've been in there for 12 hours now so I know I'm at t he beginning of the process.

Recommendations for next steps? Thanks.

[wilsonreefs]

I'm curious about a idea I have. I've never liked the fact that the sand under a rock eventually ends up black due to poor circulation. This in turn causes the water to become foul. I have put rock on the bare bottom and put the sand in afterwards. Sand always ends up under the rock. I have a shallow bed of sand (was a deep bed). My thoughts are to build racks out of 1/2" diameter PVC to raise the rocks off the bottom about 3/4". The sand should be able to cover the piping. This would allow sand sifting critters to actually get under the rocks. What do you guys think?

[Vinny Kreyling]

Some have done this & been successful.

[Systemwizardinc]

just got about 100lb of rock for a 100gl tank do you think thats good

[TopDogFish]

I need to sell my live rock.

[whiterushen]

I inherited 40 lbs of cured live rock and 40 lbs of dried dead rock. I did not use any chemicals, bleaches or RODI water when cleaning the dead rock. I cleaned and scrubbed the rock in salt water 1.025, then let it sit in a tank with no light. Of course in a few days, my dead rock went through the rotten egg smell stage a few days--- i scrubbed the rock the following weekend and one more weekend in salt water. I used fluval cycle in extreme doses, and began introducing light and put it into a tank that was still cycling. After 4 weeks, I installed a couple of starter fish for a few weeks---in 5 weeks the old dead live rock was fully cycled. I swapped both the good cured live rock with the recently repaired rock 50/50---both tanks are now cycled and look great. I have one tank for my LPS and zoa garden and one tank for my SPS.

[curtisd57369]

I have a 90 gallon tank that I am trying te get rid of some un wanted coral can it be taken out of tank for a few days scraped and put back in tank a piece at a time or will it cause to much of a cycle.