Chad and Belinda Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 I have some dead rock (dry porus rock that would be great for housing good bacteria). Can anyone tell me how to do this? How much live rock do I need to put in the tub to "seed" the new stuff and how long does this process take? Is there anyway of knowing when the rock is ready or is that just an educated guess? Thanks for any advice. Chad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaJMasta Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 I just started with some of my own, I am using about 5 lbs to seed 25-30 lbs... not the best ratio but it should get me some biodiversity and I've got some time to start it up. While the bacteria making it useful may be properly seeded in just a couple weeks (though it may take quite a while to reach full filtration capacity), generally other organisms take longer and coralline takes a couple months to really start to be present. The more rock you seed with, the quicker the process will be for those other organisms, but it will be about the same for bacteria and coralline either way. Knowing when it's 'ready' is always a guess. If you wait until it's entirely purple it's probably ready by almost anyone's standards, but if you get a couple weeks in an established environment or with some basic critters and a little bit of food, it should have all the bacteria and such it needs to be on it's own in a tank, though it will still have some growing time when it gets there to reach it's full potential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad and Belinda Posted April 14, 2010 Author Share Posted April 14, 2010 Great info. We have a good sized sump (55 gallons). If I put this dead rock in there, would it have a negative impact on our system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 where were you on the chat tonight? This is exactly what we talked about! are you going to be adding this new dead rock to your tank? that'll sway my answer and here are my basic guidelines: - get a big bucket that will house all the rock. A Brute trash can works good as does a rubbermaid horse trough if you have that much space and have that much rock - add your rock to the bucket, then add your saltwater. Water from your tank is good, or fresh saltwater works too. - I prefer stability from seachem to seed the new rock. Yes, you can add seed live rock, but I would only do this if you are seeding from existing rock in your tank. This way, you are keeping any unknown critters out of your new rock - give the rock a month ideally, 2-3 weeks if you are in a pinch to cycle. Throwing a piece of fish food in there to break down will help if you are up to it, but its not necessary. - change the water when the bucket/vat of LR starts to stink. It should smell like fresh sea water. - you can test the water for ammonia/nitrites/nitrates to see when its cycled, but after a month, you should be good to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 oh and coraline won't grow w/out light so unless you are lighting the bucket/vat (which is a waste of energy), you won't see any coraline growth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbnj Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 (edited) We have a good sized sump (55 gallons). If I put this dead rock in there, would it have a negative impact on our system? Depends on where it came from. If it's just dried-out rock (i.e., previously live) and nothing has been done to it, you'll probably release a ton of phosphates from all the dead stuff contained in and on the rock. I have about 300-400 lbs of dried rock that I've been drying out in the sun. When the time comes, I'm going to soak it all in a vinegar/RO_DI bath, then rinse/soak it some more in just RO_DI, and only then will it go in my new tank. Edited April 14, 2010 by pbnj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acropoorer Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Hey Chad,I just cured 290 pounds of dry live rock in my new tank. Dry live rock is dried rock that was once live, so if that is what you have I wouldn't put it directly in your sump as it will generate a lot of ammonia and probably overwhelm your bio system then kill your stuff. Use a large container to cure it first and I would do a couple of rinse/soaks with ro/di like pat described before adding salt water. I rinsed and soaked for a week in ro/di (completely changed the ro/di water three times) before adding salt water to my rock and still had a long cycle of ammonia (3 more weeks of skimming, rowa phos, carbon and few regular water changes}. After the ammonia is down (0ppm) you could add it to your sump and it will develop anaerobic bacteria in the rock over time. When the ammonia is zero the dead stuff is completely decayed. One other thing. While this stuff is soaking there will be phospates in the rock and water. If the phosphates are really high some of it will stay in the rock and leach back out later when you put it into your tank. Be sure you are running rowa or some other phosphate sponge in your system when you put the rock in your tank or that you extract it all while it's curing. You can call me it you want to talk about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad and Belinda Posted April 14, 2010 Author Share Posted April 14, 2010 Thanks guys for all the info. While y'all were talking about it on chat, I was trying to figure out how to do it on the web. Guess I should pay a little more attention to chat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Google "curing dead rock" 1,350,000 responses ARC chat: 1 response to your question with tailored responses! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmelhiser Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Maybe I dropped into the chat room a little late, but not much talk of curing rock was going on while I wondered through I had a few more questions: Do you need to worry about temperature while curing the rock? How much flow is enough? How important is steady salinity (ie, do I need to worry about evaporation) Seems like there are going to be quite a few of us doing this all at once. Is there any benefit in looking into a "Group Cure"? -t Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 Maybe I dropped into the chat room a little late, but not much talk of curing rock was going on while I wondered through I had a few more questions: Do you need to worry about temperature while curing the rock? How much flow is enough? How important is steady salinity (ie, do I need to worry about evaporation) temp: its best to have it warmer - 75-80 ish, but you can probably get by this time of year if you just put the container in your house or garage. flow: not a real big deal. Just something to keep the water moving. salinity: its not super important as long as you can keep the swings low. So if you have a spare auto top off unit, use it. If not, just keep an eye on it and add RO/DI water to it every couple of days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaJMasta Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 temp: its best to have it warmer - 75-80 ish, but you can probably get by this time of year if you just put the container in your house or garage. flow: not a real big deal. Just something to keep the water moving. salinity: its not super important as long as you can keep the swings low. So if you have a spare auto top off unit, use it. If not, just keep an eye on it and add RO/DI water to it every couple of days. Agreed. It's just like the rest of the stuff in your tank, but a lot of those critters' tolerances are higher, so wider ranges than you'd let your tank get to, but still within some reasonable amount. So long as there's no extremes, it should all work out. Doing it in a bucket in the garage sounds good, but there's definitely the potential for over 82F or so on a near daily basis, and I would almost say that temp swings on the high side are worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barderer Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 The primary purpose of curing rock is to establish the various colonies of bacteria in order for it to filter. Since there is no real food source during the curing process higher level organisms will not develop or propagate. The bacteria are not that temperature sensitive so you don't need to heat the water. If the rock was previously alive your first phase should be with fresh water to allow the phosphates to leech out. Then move to saltwater phase. Seed with some sand or rock from a established pest free tank, or you can use a commercial seed but I can't testify to the bio diversity of those products. Grind up some shrimp or some sort of matter to decay and wait for the ammonia spike and then start changing out the water. You can monitor the process and check to make sure all phases of bacteria have been established. Of course do it in the dark to prevent growth of unwanted algae. Invite us over to look at your tank. Done. N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lamont Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 When i started my second tank i cured 40lbs of dead rock( completely white and dry) in a new tank for 3 weeks. then dropped 3 red legged hermits and a 2lb rock with some coraline algae on it. the crabs shells brushed up against the coraline algae and spread it to the other rocks. once i saw coraline growing on the other rocks i new it was time to start adding more rock as well as live stock. now all the rock is live and pods are in the tank as well as spaghetti worms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dapettit Posted April 14, 2010 Share Posted April 14, 2010 +1 with barderer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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