Cycling and Aquascaping fears

Biznizface · Jan 15, 2017

Hi,

Have had my upgrade which is a TMC signature 900 cycling for 6 weeks now.

5 of those weeks I was away in Asia but a friend kept eye on the tank.

I used some established live rock from a smaller tank which i put in the sump and some new live rock from my LFS which I attempted to putty together before I went on holiday but messed it up due to putting back into the tank before the putty had bonded at all.
So I just placed the rock all loose in the DT.

My cycle is complete I think as I have no ammonia and a touch of nitrate.

My question is can I remove the live rock in the DT and take my time to create the scape out of the water then leave it out of the water for 24 hours to ensure a good bond as I'm trying to create a bommie kind of structure and don't want it breaking again or will this cause problems for the cycle the rock dying off or whatever ?

Any thoughts please guys ?

simo · Jan 15, 2017

Biznizface said:
Hi,

Have had my upgrade which is a TMC signature 900 cycling for 6 weeks now.

5 of those weeks I was away in Asia but a friend kept eye on the tank.

I used some established live rock from a smaller tank which i put in the sump and some new live rock from my LFS which I attempted to putty together before I went on holiday but messed it up due to putting back into the tank before the putty had bonded at all.
So I just placed the rock all loose in the DT.

My cycle is complete I think as I have no ammonia and a touch of nitrate.

My question is can I remove the live rock in the DT and take my time to create the scape out of the water then leave it out of the water for 24 hours to ensure a good bond as I'm trying to create a bommie kind of structure and don't want it breaking again or will this cause problems for the cycle the rock dying off or whatever ?

Any thoughts please guys ?

Yes url have 1 to 2 hours max

Biznizface · Jan 15, 2017

I was thinking leaving it over night. Surely the bacteria in there already will just re populate the rock again once put back in ?

A couple of hours won't be enough to get a good bond.

tankstudy · Jan 15, 2017

Biznizface said:
I was thinking leaving it over night. Surely the bacteria in there already will just re populate the rock again once put back in ?

A couple of hours won't be enough to get a good bond.

The rate at which they repopulate is extremely slow. The nitrifiers are not like e.coli where its a ton of replications in single day. If you kill off a substantial amount, your going to have to let them grow back again and that may take awhile.

maroun.c · Jan 16, 2017

I just dry rescaped my tank with corals on the rocks... Used Grotech ultra fast cure epoxy. Amazing consistency to work with and is rock solid in less than 5 min. Would highly advise you find some and use it.
I also had some reefcememt on hand to use (had enough epoxy do didn't use it) from previous experience it's. A bit tricky to get the right water percentage to get good consistency but cure time is very fast. I'm not sure if it would leach phosphate as it has Portland cement in it. My rocks and SPS were out of water for around 2 hours,a few SPS looked bad first day but improved rather quick. No signs of a cycle nor algae growth on the rocks.