Curing Rock Query

[redfishblewfish]

All the rock I’ve used in past years has been live rock. Well I just did a little playing making some rock arches using “dead” rock. So I’m now ready to cure it. This is the first time I’ve cured rock. I have a 20 gallon tank with a heater all set. Can or should I use water-change water for the curing tank? That is, I change 15 gallons a week out of my DT. Can I use that water to start the cured rock tank…and use it to change the water once a week in that tank? Or, should I be using fresh made saltwater?

 

[RiVerfishgirl]

I'm confused. You don't cure dead rock, it has no die off. Unless it's dead rock with a bunch of crap on it, it won't lead to any ammonia. If, however, you want to culture bacteria on it you need to either add established media (live rock, sand, etc.) and an ammonia source, or manually cycle by adding it to the tank and adding an ammonia source, then waiting for the nitrifying bacteria to show up.

 

[redfishblewfish]

Dead rock, that is, it was once alive, had all kinds of life within it when it was wet and in your tank. When you take it out and let it sit for an extended period of time….in my case, about two years, all that once alive stuff is now dead…but still in the rock. When you want to use this rock again, you need to cure it. That means putting it in saltwater with a heater and maybe a little flow and letting the dead stuff become reborn (redevelop new life). This process will produce phosphates, ammonia, nitrites, lions, tigers and bears…oh my. If I were to put this dead rock directly into my DT, it would be a potential nightmare. You might be able to get away with putting a small volume of rock into an established tank, but not the amount I want to throw in there.

I would suggest you do a search on curing rock...Any dry rock needs to be cured before going in your tank....unless you are starting a new tank and the curing process is part of the cycle.

 

[fsn77]

If your tank has low nutrient levels, using water change water is fine. However, if your existing tank has elevated nutrient levels and/or nuissance algae issues, I would use freshly mixed sw instead.

I would highly recommend putting in a couple pieces of established live rock with your currently dead rock. In the few times I've re-seeded / re-cured dead rock to make it live again, the process moved at a snail's pace until I added even just a few small pieces of established live rock. Once those couple small pieces of established live rock went in with the dead rock, the process went much faster, although it does still take time for bacteria to spread nicely to the recently dead rock. The dead rock just seems to need that little bit of a bacterial boost to really get things going.

 

[RiVerfishgirl]

I thought you were talking about clean base rock or something since you didn't explain.

You probably still need to add an ammonia source. I've taken rock out before and the stuff on it hardens and it doesn't necessarily decay when you put it back, or at the least it takes forever to add any noticeable amount of ammonia. I just put old lava rock in my 40g that I'd had in my reef tank that had all kinds of stuff on it when I took it out, and most of the dead stuff was extremely hard or somewhat calcified. I've also used dead rock from other people's tanks before and it didn't add any ammonia, so I think you'll probably still have to add some live rock to kick off the biological cycle unless you wanna wait forever for the stuff to soften back up and start to decay.

 

[redfishblewfish]

I thought you were talking about clean base rock or something since you didn't explain.

Clean base rock or any dry rock needs to be cured before going in a tank. The only exceptions; if the amount of dry rock is relative small, (the extablished tank can handle the phosphate dump that will occur), of if it is a new tank and the curing becomes part of the cycling of the tank.

 

[RiVerfishgirl]

Clean base rock or any dry rock needs to be cured before going in a tank. The only exceptions; if the amount of dry rock is relative small, (the extablished tank can handle the phosphate dump that will occur), of if it is a new tank and the curing becomes part of the cycling of the tank.

Base rock that's been cleaned (I.E. already cleaned off and already cured) doesn't need to be cured before adding to the tank. When a lot of people say dead rock they're talking about rock that has nothing in/on it, so that's what I thought you might have meant. I've never had anything show up from adding large amounts of clean base rock to any tank, saltwater or freshwater. If it's base rock that's simply been dried, then yes, it probably should be cured.

 

[redfishblewfish]

I certainly don’t mean to be argumentative, but I will quote right from Marco Rock website concerning clean, washed, dry rock. (Marco Rock is one of the better known rock suppliers in the US.) I do this just so others can be informed. If your method works for you, that is great. I say this because I have seen other things that I though should not be done, and people are doing it. We have a guy in our club who is successfully running a large saltwater tank for over 20 years with under-the-gravel filtration. If you were to ask me if I would recommend this, I’d say a definite NO. However this guy is doing it. So again, if putting uncured dry rock directly into your tank works for you, by all means, keep on doing it. For me, I’ll cure it first.

FROM Marco Rock website http://www.marcorocks.com/index.asp?PAGEACTION=COMPANY :

Can I add Marco Rocks right into my established tank?

We do not recommend our rock or any other rock right into an established tank.

Even though Marco Rocks has been washed and dried it will still have some trapped organic material that will break down and need to cycle before it is safe to use in your tank.