Live Rock Curing

[szidls]

Ok......almost ready for live rock in my new 150 gal sps tank. Here's the debateable question. How do you cure your live rock? Do you use seperate containers from the main tank? Do you keep light out? I will be skimming either way......display tank or seperate container. How often do you do water changes? Some say frequent and some say let the amonia cycle run its course and then do a large water change at the end.
Let's here it.
Thanks, Scott

[fletch]

Hi Scott try this link out I think it will answer all of your questions........... John

http://www.livestockusa.org/CURING.html

[szidls]

Hey Fletch,
Thanks for the link. It basically told me what I was thinkin already. We lived through about 75 lbs live rock curing in the house a coupple years ago during the summer. That was a stinkin one...... Since I will be curing almost 200 lbs I think an alternate vessel will be a wise idea. Anyone know anything about keeping light out of the equation during curing?
Scott

[shawnz28]

I agree on using a separate container. I cured the 150 pounds in my tank and for a week it was terrible.

[mojoreef]

Hiya Scott.
New LR has been out of the water for awhile and most of the sponge and surface algae is on its way out. If you keep the Lighting off, it will stop Photosynthesis, and speed up the death of the algae that came in on the rock. It will also help the rock shed some detritus. If you have OZone its great for cureing LR, it will speed up the process alot.
I am a little impatcient with curing rock so this is what I do.
I keep it in a seperate container, with new ASW. after about 4 to 5 days I make another container of water and then pull the rock out peice by peice. When I pull the rock I scrobb off all debris and dig out the rock boring sponges (thier coming out anyway). They are easy to find just by smell, lol rotten eggs. I use a powerhead to blow off the decay into the old tank and then transfer that peice to the new container. Thier is something about sitting thier watching the stuff have to dissinagrate that I cant do.lol After doing this twice I transfer the rock to the main tank, which once again has new water in it. By this time the vast majority of the rock has had the dieing sponges and algae removed.
What I find this does beside speed up the process, is that it reduces the ammount of bacteria needed to cycle, which after a few weeks will lessen the algae bloom from the original bacteriaal bloom. If you have ozone it also really helps speed up the getting rid of the rotting material.

Good luck

Mike

[JohnO]

This might seem like a really stupid question, but why would you go to all the trouble of buying 'live' rock just to kill all the life on it?

I would just put it all in the tank and let it cycle, but that's just MHO

John :-)

[shawnz28]

If you can deal with the smell it is great but I tried it and I had to have my windows open or cracked when it was like 40 degrees outside cause I couldnt take the odor in an enclosed space like a room.

[JohnO]

Of course it will smell, but once you put it in the water the odour quickly goes away :-)

Anyway, besides the smell aspect that wasn't my really stoopid question :-)

John

[shawnz28]

Of course it will smell, but once you put it in the water the odour quickly goes away

I have to disagree my room was almost unbearable for at least a week, even with water changes and tons of carbon. I love the chance to have the extra life in the tank but I would have perferred to cured it else where for maybe a week or two before putting it in to get rid of the initial die off.

[JohnO]

Not disagreeing with you at all old mate. If you want to cycle the rock elsewhere, I have no objections or concerns except, as I asked, why buy live rock, if you are just going to scrub the life off of it?

John