Cooking and Curing Rock....

[htfn]

I bought Pukani rocks, Tonga shelfs and branches from Eli, Fiji Reef Rock while I was in Calgary. I'm following his direction to curing the rocks.

>> Curing process
>> this is well a recipe for curing dry rock from fijireefrock.com
>> as I have been testing for the last few month with it not to bore you with the different techniques let get started with what I found works as best and shortest timing possible.Please feel free to add or discuss any view for any type of dry rocks curing on this post to help everyone,...
>>
>> Played equally with all the 4 types of dry rock (Pukani,fiji premiun,Tonga shelf and Tonga branch) in different styles of vats.
>>
>> 4 vats containing separatly each type of dry rock
>> 2 vats with mix of all types of dry rock
>>
>> lets talk about the 4 vats 1st
>> all 4 vats where setup in the warehouse with tap water and salinity of 1.24ppm temperature between 82 and 84 degree with couple of power heads for circulation. No water change or skimmer at all.Total darkness with only ambient day light.
>> let it sit for a week and tested for ammonia witch was over 8 believing much higher test readout.
>> XX Over skimmed my reef system from home then added roughly 2 cups of fresh skim-mate to each vat on day 7.
>> Kept checking for tap top off every 4 days and testing ounce a week...
>> On week 3 tested 0 for ammonia witch I thought too early then tested with couple kits and still readout at 0 yes the water had a yellow tinge to it.
>> From that time until now I still feed the rock with fresh ski-mate as I do not want to kill the nytrifying bacteria and still readout at 0.
>> I then decided to bring couple hundred lbs to add to my fully loaded system that contains roughly 500lbs of old live rock.
>> Placed some in the sump and some in the display with no issues going on 3 weeks now and amazingly no algae or diatom outbreak.(my lighting consist of only royal blue spectrum LED with only 2 hours of whites a day.
>>
>> Conclusion 3 weeks in the dark with nothing more that growing nitrifying bacteria and seeded with skimmer bacteria ready for a system.
>>
>> 2 vats curing in my home next to my main system one vat directly plumbed to my sump and the other vat on its own.
>>
>> 1st vat directly to my system
>> Nothing special besides making sure in the dark, the temperature is at 82 degree and one power-head for circulation.Oh yes about 140lbs of mixed dry reef rock in that vat.
>> I kept adding HC-GFO and carbon to my system nothing more. Testing ammonia witch gave a reading of .25 for day 3 to day 6.Every day after that readout of 0 ammonia 3 weeks ago.The rock is ready for main system.
>>
>> Conclusion after I suggest and to be on the safer side 10 days of a ratio of 3lbs live to 1 lb of mix dry frock it is safe to be used on a system.
>>
>> 2nd vat 100 glns sitting near my main system
>> About 100 lbs of mix dry rock in the dark,one power head temperature of 82 degree no skimming salinity of 1.24ppm
>> after 3 day tested ammonia of over 8 as I suspected.
>> I would remove every night remove one gallon of the vat water place it in my system and replace it with water again from my system.
>> Did that for 10 days as on day 8 ammonia readout of 0 kept testing everyday different timing and always got readout of 0.
>> Now I replace 2 gallons of that water with main system water ounce every week and keeping all that rock for my new build
>>
>> Any and all dry rock need cycling time and patience takes a very important role in this as I seen people buy my dry rocks place it in a system and have it cycling with full lights on as it will be loaded with algae and have much longer curing process of ugly green rocks to go through.
>>
>> There are lots of different methods for curing the dry frock but I found the above to be most effective.
>>
>> I don't recommend using any additives to try and speed up the curing process as I always believed the natural way tops all.

[hfp75]

Aug 12....

I took an old tank (60-65 gal) and put it up on my workbench and put in a pair of powerheads, filled it with water and got it running - with a working air stone. Then I put in all the cleaned rock. Due to the possibility of residual bleach I also put in a bunch of Prime.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps55c6b805.jpg

Then today (a day later) I put in the rock that I was curing....... (on the right side - darker)

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps712fbc28.jpg

Now I'll let it run for a few days and change out some water, my garage is usually dark which will help decrease any unwanted algae growth.....

My goal is to get all the rock cycled and see what the PO4 is..... If I need to run ROWA then I will, but a few H2O changes should lower any residual PO4. My last residual test on the curing portion of the rock was PO4 of 0.5.

[hfp75]

Well, this thread will take a bit of a change. It has been about prepping rock, but I moved my tank yesterday - THAT IS A PITA...... and HEAVY... made me want out of the hobby and my wife thinks I am absolutely crazy.

Anyways here is a pic of it strapped into my truck.... I'd have taken more pics but my camera died. All my coral and fish in bags and buckets would have been a few great pics but...

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps5bc8c692.jpg


Last night I got enough of it up and running that I could go to bed. I had 4 fish die yesterday - I should have added them in first instead of last. The rest of my fish made it. Even "Side-Ways-BOB" my fish that had a stroke or something and only turns in one direction and will bump into rocks, ect (that was last month).

Here is a pic of everything this morning with a few lights on. I am refreshed to see the corals coming out with the light and the fish swimming around. I was forced to use my rock tank as I was out of space and my tank was too murky to get it all in last night.

My Tank 50 Gal - back up and running...

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...pscaaf661e.jpg

Rock Tank 65 Gal

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps6b782bf5.jpg


I have done one water change already and there is another on the way. Two 20% water changes today - so 40% (+/-) changed today should help if there were any water issues.

I am also running a heavy load of Rowa to clean up the 'rock tank'. Don't want any outbreaks now that there is a light on it, there is a bunch of established live rock in there though so it should be good.

It looks ugly but its all alive and well....

I need a new tank and will start a New tank build soon. Both of these tanks are running in the garage so it all needs into the house before it gets to cold....