May be confused?

Pixburgh · Apr 24, 2014

Not sure if I'm confused or not... I was thinking that I could purchase all of my dry rock, aquascape it, add it and begin cycling my tank. Do I need to "cook" the rock first? i.e have it in a tub with heated saltwater for a few weeks for phosphates to leach out?

Help please

jgraz · Apr 24, 2014

Where is the dry rock coming from?

StikHedRon · Apr 24, 2014

No you don't have to "cook" your rock if you don't want to. All your really doing by "cooking" your rock is trying to remove as much "bad" stuff from the rock before putting it in your tank so you don't have to freak out when your tank looks like crap for a couple months. LoL. If you have the time, "cook" it, but you can take dry rock and put it in your tank and go at it.

Reefing Madness · Apr 24, 2014

No, no ned for cooking dry rock. If you are patient, you can run the cycle with it in the tank, and know ahead of time your going to need to remove all those phosphates, or yes, running it in a tub, then throwing it in the DT after its done leaching.

Pixburgh · Apr 25, 2014

Thanks

. Someone suggested that I buy dry rock from reefrocks.net so that's where I had planned to get it from. Will the 80% water change after i'm cycled take care of the phosphate problem i'd have from just putting the dry rock in?

jgraz · Apr 25, 2014

That's some of the best dry rock out there. I have done me last two tanks with it. Clean as a whistle if you ask me. What I did was add my dry rock, then dry sand, rodi to fill the tank then added salt to the sump to bring up to proper salinity. Once there I kick started the cycle with some dead raw shrimp and a couple of pieces of live rock from my other tank, which I later removed. Once the cycle was complete I did a small water change and started sticking slowly. You will not have a problem with that rock leaching phosphate. If you were using Marco rock or BRS reef saver then, well you would.