Adding dry rock to a cycled tank
- Thread starter JKDMan
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uhgster1
Well-Known Member
I’ve done it before. Takes about a month or two before it blends in with the established rock. If you have a sump it’s even easier. Just let it sit in the sump for a while. Either way I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It’s not like you’re replacing 90% of the scape.
waterskiguy
Active Member
Definitely cure it first. If you don't want ANY cycle, you can acid and bleach cure it. I put 50/50 acid / bleach cured rock and established rock, for a total of around 160 lbs, in my tank with zero problems whatsoever. Makes it easy to be able to cure and drop into the tank. Entire process took me 3 days.
Mario0240
Active Member
How much rock did you have in the tank? I’m wanting to add maybe 20-30lbs to my 90g tank. I’ve got some rock bleach curing right now.
Would definietly cure it first mostly because of phospahtes leaching into your tank. If you don't have any bleach on hand I would just cure it in ro water with a gfo reactor or dose lanthanum chloride to get rid of the phosphates. Once ammonia is 0 and rocks stop leaching po4 then its ready to put into the tank.
Depends on how much rock you already have and water volume, in my 90 at the 1 year mark I added quite a bit of dry rock to the already much rock I had, coupled with lots of fish and quite a few corals and everything was fine. I wouldn't sweat it with curing 1st unless it's a new system with little rock in it and maybe smaller than 40g.
jp_75
Valuable Member
made that mistake! added bunch of rock and phosphate jumped to 0.5! it slowy going down. checked today and phospate and it is on 0.28. it takes some time.
next time i decide to add rock i make sure it’s going to be one rock at the time(6 months)
next time i decide to add rock i make sure it’s going to be one rock at the time(6 months)
