curing live rock

[icel]

On September 20th I received 45 lbs of live rock, 4 big pieces all around the same size. It was 5 days in transit. I put it in freshly made saltwater right after scrubbing off all the smelly dark spots when I received it.


3 days after receiving it, I did a 100% water change.

3 days later, another 100% change.

Then one week later a 50% change.

It has been a week since and I plan to do a 50% water change tomorrow.


Two days ago I tested the water

Ammonia: 0ppm-.25ppm

Nitrite: .25 ppm

Nitrate: 20ppm-40ppm


The problem is that two of the rocks are still very smelly. In one of the rocks, there is a tunnel that goes through the middle of the rock that I am sure has the walls completely covered in a rotting sponge because that's where the smell is coming from. I tried to scrape the black sponge off as much as i could, but it's too deep so I couldn't do much about it.

Along with that rock, one of the others has that same bad smell but not as much. I can't find where it's coming from.

The other two rocks do not smell bad.

This is weird, since I expected the ammonia to be off the charts since two still smell pretty bad?


Could I get an estimate of how much longer it would take if I continue the 50% weekly water changes and taking the Params into account?

 

[the wizard]

Personally, I wouldn't be doing water changes yet. That is if you don't have any fish or corals in the tank.

Just let the tank cycle.

Maybe add a raw shrimp in a nylon to the tank to get it going good. (See the sticky on cycling in the marine newbie section).

Good luck and keep us posted with your progress on setting up your tank.

BTW, we do love pics. :thm:

 

[fsn77]

I would skip the water changes and let the bacteria do their thing. If you can't get the dead sponge out of the rock, you'll pretty much just need to let things run their course. Once the only thing you're detecting is nitrate, then do a large water change to significantly reduce those nitrates. The ammonia and nitrite are food for the bacteria population you're trying to build -- no need to be removing those.

 

[icel]

Oh I'm not cycling my tank, I'm curing the rocks in a rubbermaid container. My tank is already established..

Won't the ammonia kill all the stuff on the rocks too anyway?

 

[the wizard]

My mistake, I thought the rock was in your tank. You still want to let the ammonia build and establish the bacteria to change it to nitrite, etc.

Basically cycle your LR in the tub, just don't need to add an ammonia source.

After the ammonia and nitrite both read 0, and the nitrate is up you should be good to go to add the rock to your tank.

 

[Kushal]

the best way to clean the rocks are to put the rocks in water and add salt and boil it for 15 minutes and leave it for another two hours, that way the smell will go away and rocks will also be ready for use in an aquarium,please try the above procedure and let me know how it goes, it worked for me and a couple of my friends also

 

[the wizard]

Boiling the live rock would kill what is left on the rock and negate the purpose of buying live rock. IMO.

 

[greech]

If I do water changes to cure rock or cycle a tank, I am doing so to preserve as much life as I can. However, in your case the rock was in transit for 5 days so you are pretty behind the curve in that regard. I would just let the tank cycle on its own and hold off on WCs until both ammonia and nitrite are 0 and nitrate peaks and begins to fall. Once that happens continue to do WC's until you get trate down close to 0. Might consider an initial 50%ish WC to start.