Dry rock

fooman · #1 01-31-2014, 01:23 AM

Okay so i am going this weekend to get 150 pounds of Fiji dry rock and i have a question. Do i need to cure this dry rock or can i just put it in my new tank that i am setting up and start the cycle?

KrazyKuch · #2 01-31-2014, 01:34 AM

rinse it then toss it in....dry rock is allready cured

asylumdown · #3 01-31-2014, 08:42 AM

yah the process of curing is to deal with the dieback that happens on recently shipped live rock. Depending on what dry rock you're using, you might not need to worry about it.

I have seen some dry rock that has dried up dead stuff on it, which will definitely rot the second it's submerged in water, but if you're cycling a new tank that is actually a good thing. Marco rock seems to have almost nothing organic in it and can go straight in to a tank.

In any case if it's all dead rock and a new tank that you're cycling for the first time, you don't need to think about curing.

mrhasan · #4 01-31-2014, 02:52 PM

I think the title of this thread says it all

Have a look at it....

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...d.php?t=102769

fooman · #5 02-01-2014, 04:43 PM

Well it seems the rock i got used to be live so there is stuff on it and in it seems . So now i am wondering if i should cook it in a acid bath or just clean it the best i can . I have been trying to see what is done on the forms but there is so many opinions on this it is hard to tell i don't want to screw this up.

asylumdown · #6 02-01-2014, 08:24 PM

An acid bath isn't necessary. The link mrhassan posted was really interesting, I had no idea that dry fiji rock could cause such a large ammonia spike, but since your goal is to cycle the tank, you actually need to generate an ammonia spike one way or another. If there's dead stuff on the rock you have you've got a built in source. If you do an acid or bleach bath to scrub the surface of the rock clean, once it's in the tank you're just going to need something organic like a rotting shrimp to get the cycle going anyway, so really it's six one way half a dozen the other, only one way takes way less time and effort.

If you were adding this rock to an established system I'd say letting it sit in a tub of water for a couple of weeks would be called for based on Eli's thread, but it's going in to a brand new, uncycled tank.

Cooking, which is for more extensive than curing, is another idea entirely. I think there's justifiable value in doing that with any rock unless there's a whole bunch of macro algae or certain hitchhikers that you're trying to preserve, but it's far more time and labour intensive. The cooking process attempts to remove as many organics and nutrients from the rock as possible in a dark, controlled place before the rock goes in to the tank so that it won't act as a leaching source for anything. I'd say dry rock that used to be live would benefit from this process more than any other rock used in the hobby as you're not losing any life in the process, but to do it properly takes 2-3 months (though maybe less time when your'e starting with dead stuff). Not sure if you want to wait that long to use this rock, especially when you have no way of knowing in advance if it's really something that will lead to a subjective/objective difference in your tank long term as that depends entirely on what's inside the rock.

If I wasn't in a hurry at all, I'd probably consider the cooking option, but if I didn't want to wait until April for this tank to be up and running, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over not doing it. There's a lot of ways to manage nutrients.

What I would do if I were you and wasn't patient, would be to set up the tank, aquascape with this rock as is, fill with salt water, then test levels levels over a few days. If you see ammonia starting to climb in 3 or 4 days, then don't do anything, just wait the cycle out. Two birds, one stone that way. If you don't see much of a spike (ammonia levels of around 2ppm are a good goal for a cycle), you can add something like pure ammonium chloride or a raw shrimp to help it along. I'm partial to straight ammonia because there's no organic carbon in it, which can lead to a competition for space between the true nitrifiers that you want, and the far more prolific carbon munching heterotrophs that can also facultatively use ammonia. While I was doing that, I'd also be testing for phosphate, and responding to it specifically based on what that test was telling me.

Also remember that 'dead' rock like that is prime real estate for every species of opportunistic problem algae as there's no competition for space or resources. If you are adding any currently 'live' rock to this tank during the cycle, leave your lights off, and keep them off until both the cycle is complete and your dissolved nutrients are under control. This will save you months of new tank headaches, as once algae gets a foothold it can easily become more efficient at scavenging nutrients than any export system you can build. If you drive your dissolved nutrients in to the 'reef acceptable' range before you either introduce algae or introduce light to algae, you'll be far better off.

SmallFry · #7 02-02-2014, 12:00 AM

I put my dry Fiji rock in a tub with a couple of pieces of live rock, a heater and powerhead. Got the full ammonia spike followed by nitrite, then nitrate as you'd expect. Was quick though, all over in about three weeks. I also used old tank water, not that I think it did anything but I'm too cheap to use freshly mixed..

When you get it in the tank make sure you run gfo at the first sign of algae, I would've except it took nearly two weeks for someone to even ship mine and that stuff grows fast....

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