Cylcling with cured rock work?

[jessicaparker]

if i put cured rock into a new tank will it cycle on its own? or does the rock have to be uncured?

[HanoverFist]

If it's already cured there should be little to no cycle. Still I'd toss a small piece of shrimp in (in a nylon) and see if you get ammonia or nitrates. Most likely there will be some sort of mini-cycle. But with good, cured rock you should have a quick cycle - if any at all.

[thegrun]

If the rock is truly 100% cured, there will not be a cycle (or the need for one). A cycle only occurs when there is more waste (ammonia) introduced to the tank than the existing bacterium that populates live rock (primarily) can process into nitrites and then nitrates. To be sure your rock will process waste, blend up a raw shrimp and dump it in the tank. If you do not see an ammonia or nitrite spike in 3-4 days, you are good to add livestock.

[jessicaparker]

i added 60 lbs of uncured rock to my tank however it was pretty clean with no much junk on it. it has been 2 weeks and there has been no nitrite or ammonia spike. does it normally take longer then 2 weeks?

[thegrun]

If there was not much dead organic material on the rock, you will need to add some. I would use the raw shimp method to introduce waste.

[jessicaparker]

i was thinking about doing that but read an article where a guy was outlining all the difference cycling methods and he highly recommended not doing the shrimp method. i have also heard of people doing it and then not being able to get the ammonia level down for months. im sure everyone has a diff story though....

[Humu Humu]

As noted above, try adding a little bit of food and see what happens. Test for NH3 and NO2 and if you don't see a spike, you're good to go.