New Live Rock Pics, What Do You Think?

Hi guys,

I'm a complete newbie here, starting off my first 55 gallon reef. I've been lurking around reading all the stickies and articles I could find about starting a new tank and what I should expect. My first adventure in plumbing turned out pretty good. I am now in the curing/cycling process.

The size constraints of my apartment, and the tolerance of my better half towards "stuff" being left out is very limited. I'm forced to finish the curing process of some Live Rock in my tank. I've recently picked up 87 pounds of an unknown type of rock from a LFS. They are the only place within 75 miles that had any live rock for less than $7-$9 / lb and had as much as I was looking for ~75 lbs. Unfortunately the kid who weighed the stuff out was not able to tell me exactly what type I was purchasing, only that it was not Fiji. It was however, semi-cured as it was sitting in bins for almost a week. Which brings me to my first question. Does anybody have any ideas what kind of rock this is?

So far the curing process has gone very well. I've seen an ammonia and nitrite spike and the rock itself has lightened up in color, but also grew some stuff I'm not sure of. The first thing I did when I brought it home, was clean each piece off individually with a flathead and toothbrush of obvious black and dead debris, and overall decent scrub down. It has since been sitting in the tank with 3 MJ1200's, Remora and heater (5 days now) with the lights off.

At this point, I'm not sure if I should pull it out again and remove anything that might be detrimental to the health of my soon to be system, or do I just let it sit.

When the cycle is close to finishing, I plan on doing a 100% water change, removing all the die-off sitting at the bottom, adding the substrate and aquascaping. Followed by another week or so wait depending on levels.

Have a look at these pictures and let me know what I should do. Does anything stand out to be obviously bad, and should be removed? Was the rock worth $3.79/lb?

Flattened Objects...Dead Mushrooms maybe?





Hard Green Bumpy Growths...No Idea what this could be?





Beginning to grow some grey fuzz...Bad Algae?


Also some white "putty" like stuff.. Any thoughts?


A few had these honeycomb like structures...Corals?


This ones not very porous at all, and has a moss like coat on it...



Far Away...

 

I am a newbie myself but I believe the green bump stuff is coraline algea(good) and the white is also coraline algae.

 

the white is dying off coraline algae?

 

It looks like Florida rock, it's not as porous as Fiji, but will do the job. First, all the stuff you pointed out is dead, which is for the best. (the grey patch might be some sort of sponge, but it could be dead too, depends if it is hard or soft) They are just the skeleton of what once grew there. The bumps are either dead coraline or some sort of encrusting coral, the honeycomb thing looks like a dead brain of some sort, the brown flattened things aren't dead mushrooms, they would have rotted away.
The one thing I don't like about Florida rock is that it will be harder to aquascape because of the way it's shaped, not nearly as many little nooks and crevices to fit the pieces together, but you should be fine. $3.80 is a good price for rock, so that's good.

Also, don't do a 100% water change at the end of your cycle, do maybe a 20%. You should never do anything close to a 100% water change.

 

I would not do a 100% wc when your rock is cured. Add substrate as that will also go through a cycle. In my opinion, you should have all of your rock and substrate in to cycle from the get go. The more beneficial bacteria you can grow the better off you are.

 

Wow thanks for the quick replies and suggestions guys, especially the bit about 100% water changes. I know nobody really likes curing rock in their display tank, and I would definitely would have rather done it in tubs somewhere, we just don't have the room.

One suggestion I heard at my LFS was to add the substrate at the end of the curing process. This would have given me a chance to siphon off all that dead stuff sitting at the bottom of the tank and not on the top of my sand, which would give me nitrate problems later on...

 

Everything's looking good so far as far as cycling is concerned. Be sure to blast those rocks with the power heads, and maybe even a turkey baster every other day for the first week. That's when all of your dead stuff should be all gone from the rock. I wouldn't siphon it out of the tank though, because it's the dead stuff decomposing that helps bring on the cycle in the first place. Waste and dead stuff decompose, being turned into Ammonia, Nitrite, and then finally Nitrate. You need the dead stuff to cycle properly.

What are you cycling with? A fish? Piece of shrimp? Pee? If you don't have anything producing waste in the tank to cycle, DEFINATELY leave the dead stuff in there.

 

Use a water pick for blasting the rock

 

I cycled my first batch of lr in my tank too. I didn't add the sand until it was cycled for exactly the reason you stated, to siphon the stuff off the bottom of the tank. When cycled, just add live stock slowly and you will be fine. It's good that you are taking it slow. Keep up the good work.

 

Oh yeah, cycle with the LR in the tank. Definitely. That's what I did too. Bacteria will seed all over the place. Sand, rock, powerheads, overflows, sides of the tank itself, anywhere there is a surface to glom onto. Just keep doing your testing, write it down and wait the short two or three months for your tank to mature. Then put your fish in and only one every two weeks or so.

This will give you a chance, also, to plan your tank out. What kind of fish, corals, inverts, cleaning crew etc. Remember compatability issues between everything (Fish/Corals, Corals/Inverts, Inverts/Fish). Then go slow, slow slow. You are going to have a very nice set up. Keep the pics coming!!!!!