Need some opinions please

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

My tank is well established and running great. But I am upgrading to a much bigger sump. I'll be adding about 50lbs of new rock from a freind who is having a HUGE problem with hair algae. I plan on boiling the crap out of his rock before it is added. I was thinking of adding each peice about 4-5 days apart. The rock is obviously gonna be dead so the question is if I will have my nitrates go sky high or any liitle cycles?

If you boil it you'll have to re cure it, and I don't mean in regards to growing new bacteria. Everything in and on the rock will obviously die, you'll need to soak the rock in either fresh or salt water for a few weeks changing the water as often as possible. For a fresh water cure your toilet tank will work wonders.

I wouldn't bother boiling it if you're going the fresh water cure way. A fresh water cure will kill everything just as effectively and is kind of already needed if you boil it anyway. Personally I would probably just go straight from the previous tank to a saltwater cure. A dark pail with high flow will rid the rock of algae in about a week or two, just change the water often to prevent high phosphate levels.