"Cleaning" LR?

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Ursula

AC Members
Nov 27, 2006
49
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0
My tank is 3 weeks old. I have 100# of cured LR and added 25# of uncured 8 days ago. Not worried about cycling. I'll let it take it's time. I thought I was almost ready to add fish (NH3+ has been 0 for 5 days).

Today, my anal retentive self thought that the rocks just looked "dusty." I took a turkey baster and blasted everything within reach. A TON of stuff blew off. Mostly brownish, dusty particles, but some bigger chunks/plant material.

I believe I have adequate circulation and have a Coralife Super Skimmer going. Now, the water is understandably cloudy and clearing. My pure, clean substate now has particular debris on it.

Do I wait a day and blast my rocks again to make sure they are "clean"? Do I stir my sand and let the skimmer go to work? Do I just let well enough alone at this point, retest over the next 10 days or so?
 

Dustin83

AC Members
Nov 17, 2005
370
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0
Orange County, CA
The chunks of stuff are probably dead stuff from the uncured live rock. The brown stuff could be diatoms which could be normaly during early stage of the tank. If your rock's collecting all that stuff to the point where you can dust it off and the water becomes cloudy, you probably want little bit more circulation, at least more directed around the rocks. Make sure you have enough circulation around the rocks so that these things don't collect. It's inevitable and will find places to collect, but try to minimize it. After you "dust" off these stuff, I would do some more testing again to make sure that your ammonia and nitrite still remain at 0. More than likely you will have high level of nitrate from all the broken down dead stuff. I would even try adding pure ammonia to see if the cycle's completed. After that, do multiple partial water changes to bring down to that nitrate to near 0. Then I think you might be ready. It's good that you are taking things slowly. Stay patient, and good luck!
 
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