Preparing Rock

[npierce1015]

What does the ammonia help with in starting a tank?

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[DougSupreme]

I'm doing a major upgrade to my tank (going from 75 to 250G) I have a bunch of dry rock that i am going to use, but I am also planning on reusing the rock currently in my tank.

Should i take one of the rock currently in my tank, put it in a container with the rest and let it cycle? How long?

[ReefJak]

I tried to fit 1 lb per gallon in my tank and it was 75%full and just looked like stacked rock

[DougSupreme]

Originally Posted by npierce1015

What does the ammonia help with in starting a tank?

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The ammonia feeds the bacteria to start your cycle

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[lapin]

Originally Posted by DougSupreme

I'm doing a major upgrade to my tank (going from 75 to 250G) I have a bunch of dry rock that i am going to use, but I am also planning on reusing the rock currently in my tank.

Should i take one of the rock currently in my tank, put it in a container with the rest and let it cycle? How long?

Great idea. Let them soak together for a month. That should give the bacteria plenty of time to spread. You could drop a table shrimp in there for food to increase the bacteria. No need to worry about nitrates since the water will not go in the DT.

[lapin]

Originally Posted by ReefJak

I tried to fit 1 lb per gallon in my tank and it was 75%full and just looked like stacked rock

Ya prob not the best look. You have other options for filtration and waste break down. Macro algae in the sump, filter socks....ect. Dont forget the water changes. Take some rock and move it into your sump. Works the same there and in the DT. The 1 lb per gallon is figuring you have a well stocked tank and feed it well. If you can stay away from overstocking you do not need that much rock. For example I have 18 fish in my 500 gal tank. none are over 3 inches. Most being 1" to 2". Thats about 1 fish per 25 gallons.

[npierce1015]

Thank you for the response. I'm new to this whole reef addiction

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[Tyler438]

Dry rock has been in my fishes tank for about 5 weeks now. I decided to let it cycle while clowns were in QT. Ammonia and nitrites are both 0, but nitrates are really high somewhere between 40-80ppm. I have been doing 12% water changes each week and nitrates don't seem to be moving. What is my next step? Clowns can't go back in with the nitrates this high correct?

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[Dugthefish]

Ok, when I had my last reef 15 years ago, almost all our rock was freshly imported. Now, it seems as though the SOP is to build a base with mostly dry rock and seed it with a few pieces of live. What ratio is preferred? I like a lot of rock, so I was thinking maybe 100# dry and 50# Florida aquaculture

[BayBHuey]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

Preparing Rock
There are several sources for rock: ideally it should be limestone or old coral, and have a LOT of holes, like swiss cheese: this offers more surface area. You need about 2 pounds of this sort of rock per gallon of tank–but this is tricky: not all rock weighs alike. Look at the rockwork in pix on this site and get a good idea how many pieces of what size you need. Also—use ro/di or at least ro water—filtered water that has 0 mineral content: you’ll use that for your tank on setup, and there’s no good gained by soaking your rock in water that’s already caryring a lot of what you don’t want.

1) Rock from another tank. If it is still fresh and not been out of water for more than 24 hours, it’ll probably be fine. You will have instant importation of various marine life—I got a load for a 50 gallon tank, and counted 52 species that survived a cycle, including a bit of bubble coral, xenia, and of course the obligatory aiptasia (pest anemone) and some asterinas (mini-starfish that are not a problem in an sps or lps tank: soft coral tanks may want to pick those out.) You take your chances on this sort of rock, but if it’s been in a successful tank, good things will outnumber the bad. If the donor is merely breaking down a successful tank in a house move, it’s your bonanza of life. If the donor went out in a tank crash or was overrun with something nasty, definitely move to step 2.
2) live-but-barely rock suffered in shipping or came from a troubled tank. THIS I would ‘tub’ in the dark in 80 degree 1.024 salinity agitated salt water for two months before use. This will pretty well kill off nastiness and leave you with brown bare rock. You can use a Rubbermaid Brute trash can or something with a garbage can liner, and just give it a heater and a fairly strong pump. Eheims are good small workhorses and can later serve as a salt mixing pump or water-change pump. Or you can use what will be your sump skimmer: just let it do this job. However—if your skimmer isn’t really moving the water, you need a more potent pump. You don’t want dead spots in the circulation. Do water changes weekly and also test your water to be sure it’s staying at 1.024. Test for phosphate a day after water change and if you’re getting a reading despite the water changes, you might as well start running GFO in a reactor right now. The water changes will ordinarily be enough.
3. Dry rock. You CAN put it all into the tank and wait 12 weeks for a cycle, but I don’t recommend it. Use process 2. Tub it with at least one actual live rock you’ve bought from a store or gotten from a friend. Two months in the warm salty circulation will turn it into live rock. Now—WHY? Because dry rock may contain other elements like phosphates, and the long soak will let this soak out, while it also picks up a load of bacteria from that small live rock you bought. Can bacteria-in-a-bottle speed this process? Probably a bit, but part of what you’re doing with dry rock is letting water seep deep, deep, deep into the rock—along with bacteria, which are tiny enough to get there---and nothing hurries a rock soaking. Crack open a rock that’s been in a river or an ocean—and you won’t find it dry and dusty inside. That’s part of the process you’re replicating here. Dry rock is sometimes a source for phosphate. Be sure not to use metal-bearing rock like volcanic stuff, etc: salt water and metals don't play nice. Limestone is safe. Holes are good. One big massive no-holes rock is not as efficient as a number of smaller ones.
4. Man-made rock: yes, it works fine. Put it through the same process, water changes, et al. Test for phosphate. And just keep going.

Next, your sand: I’ve never personally used live sand. I use CaribSea aragonite medium grain (the very fine sand may look pretty, but it blows about and irritates fish and kills corals). Washing this sand for a hundred gallon tank involves two five gallon buckets, a garden hose, and an all day operation, before you are rid of the milky white dust that comes with this sand. Wash about four cups at a time. And just keep running water until the sand is clean. It is a nasty, cold, wet number of hours. Yes. It is. My total sympathies.

Getting started is kind of boring and frustrating, having your nice tank and babysitting a bin of rock, but use this time to read and research and plan. You can also start washing your sand.

Hi there...total newbie here...Im about to setup a new tank...I had a few questions before doing so so I signed up here...I came across this sticky which recommends to cycle the dry rock in a tub rather than just cycle it in the tank itself because of possible phosphate problem...does that apply to a new tank because Im not sure what its getting me to cycle the rock in a separate tub except for saving some water...or maybe Im not understanding something :dunno Hopefully someone can help me understand the reasoning behind that before I make a mistake lol

Thanks for your time

BayBHuey

[MattyZ]

Thanks for posting this.

[cwschoon]

Some hobbyists are advising fresh water dips for live rock and coral, which I think is absurd. Can you address this point please?

[reachjohnnyliu]

This is my first aquarium. Can I just place all my dry rock into my DT along with a bottle of starter bacteria and just cycle for 4 weeks? Will that have a similiar result?

[neltel_7]

How should I set up a 40 gallon tank?

[neltel_7]

Do gobies mess with coral?

The engineer or diamond may throw up sand; others do not. --sk8r

[Jamborick]

Are there any issues with using inexpensive salt to cure rather than the higher cost salt I will use in the tank?


No real problem. --sk8r

[Jason82]

I have a question regarding cooking live rock. I have just started a new tank, 75 Gallon. The tank is cycling with 40 lbs of dry rock, but I also have live rock from a previous neglected tank. This rock is full of detritus and phosphate. I have loaded it into a 30 gallon bin with fresh salt water and a power head and it will stay there for the next 8 weeks. I plan on doing 100% water changes every two weeks during the process.

My question has to do with temperature. All of this is in my garage at the moment. Living in Central Florida in August, this water can get quite warm. Is this a problem I should be concerned about? Should I bring the whole mess inside?

[Oldreeferman]

Might get so hot as to kill the bacteria in a garage in Summer in FL, im cooking my new dry rock at 80F with a powerhead using regular IO salt inside in a covered bucket adding low odor ammonia so it has no odor anyway. I don't recommend a shrimp ever i mean why introduce a rotten smelly mess when ammonia is all one needs to feed the bacteria?. When i can add 4 drops per gal & its consumed in 1 day ill know its good to go if Nitrites are 0 and it will have a well established large colony of bacteria.

[Jason82]

that was my concern. Thanks for the input .

[Jason82]

So I just found some interesting information that I think relates to the subject of cooking live rock and the temperature needed.

Nitrifying bacteria's optimum growth temperature is between 77 - 86 degrees F. This growth rate will decrease by 50% at 64 degrees F. the growth rate will decrease by 75% at 40 - 50 degrees F. No activity at 39 degree's F.

Nitrifying bacteria will die at 32 degrees F and will also die at 120 degrees F.

So, in my situation (cooking rock in my garage in Central Florida in August), The environment (guessing here) is less than optimal, but not detrimental to my bacteria.

I'm going to leave it in the garage because, well, it stinks. We shall see how this works.

[Jason82]

Two weeks down. 6 weeks to go!

[Jason82]

Yep... Nope... 4 Weeks in and I'm having an ammonia spike. To me this means the bacteria is having a difficult time in the Florida Heat. All the rock came inside today. That experiment did not work well. We shall see how it goes from here.

[Jason82]

At the end of 8 week cook process on rock. I tested 0 ammonia, less than 10 ppm nitrate and about .3 phosphate. I added a couple of the rocks to my display for a week to see if it altered my parameters. No change.

I started to do another addition today, but ended up just going for it. Fingers crossed!



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[Jason82]

Day later, Ammonia 0, Nitrate 0, Phosphate 0. The guy at my LFS told me at week 5, he didn't think this was going to work. Looks like it worked perfectly to me.

[kruler]

Anyone know where I can find some Pukani?