Hello,
@cracker (quickly how have you been have missed you) in terms to
@cracker and
@fogcutter I highly suggest from experience that you use all live rock. I used half dry and half live rock when I started my 125 and had alagae problems like no other.
When I started my 240 I used the live rock from my 125 plus another 100 pounds (200 total) of new live rock. Now with the rock that I had I kept it in a 50 gallon trash rubber can. I didn’t heat it, but kept it blacked out for 6 months. Make sure you keep the water flowing, and swap some of the water out. The biggest thing is to keep the container dark, you want bacteria to grow but if you give it light it will start to bloom.
If you put dry rock in with live rock you will have alage spikes, and bloom spikes through out. Even others have said, that starting with dry rock has led to more problems than its worth. If you wanna buy dry rock to save money, by all means. But then cure it for about 3 months or longer by keeping it dark and adding bacteria to it.
This time around I have had little to zero algae probelms because of this and very little spikes. It’s worth the wait to make sure it’s all cured and has critters growing on it. Now with that said you will still go through the three ugly stages but that’s normal. It’s after that period that actually matters,
Since we want our tanks to be as stable as possible. You can add the stuff to make it live etc, I didn’t and it was fine, but it’s personal choice.
Another good thing to do is when your tank is ready, rinse each rock in fresh salt water In a bucket. If it gets kinda dirty from the rocks then empty it and fill again with clean saltwater. This will knock off the dietrust, and will see if you have any hitch hikers trying to sneek in. The rock should be fine out of the water for maybe three hours.
Once you fill the tank up, it will be cloudy but make sure you have the filter socks on, and micro filter pads. This will help trap any other nasties before it goes back Into the water column. I do suggest you keep the lights off for a few days, and use live sand as well. Once the tank clears them start the cycling process with your lights etc. I would suggest a good 6 weeks to cycle then add clean up crew. Then after testing and maybe another 3 weeks you could start with fish etc. I waited 90 days for coral, but that was my personal preference. I’m sure you probably could do sooner, but again it was something I chose to do.
Cheers
Sarah[/QUO
Thanks for the good advice. I too have had algae issues with dry base . I have 2 rocks in the 75 that look like aquatic Chia Pets ! I want to replace these 2 rocks. I have 2 pieces that need to be cured/cooked like You describe.
. Maybe I'll look for some live rock. Sarah did you get you LR from an LFS or order it from dealer?
