My experience with curing BRS Pukani

[XNavyDiver]

Just fyi: I started with dry Pukani in my 100g back in April.
As of right now I'm dealing with a dino problem. What your going to find over the first few months is that your tank will run extremely low as far as no3 and po4. I also run an oversized skimmer in my system. Algae outbreaks were easy to deal with, with just some turbo snails, but the system has always struggled with maintaining nutrient levels that weren't rock bottom. I'm having to dose po4 and no3 because of the lack of biodiversity pukani brings. The system is just too sterile. This opens the door for dinos.
If you can seed your sand and/or sump with sand from a mature system I would highly recommend it. You're going to want all those creepy crawlies. Don't let your system run at starving levels or you'll have trouble with sps corals and risk a possible dino outbreak.

 

[Jlentz]

Did a 100% WC today.... Swished each rock vigorously before I pulled it out, the drained and cleaned my tub before refilling it with rock and fresh saltwater.

This is before swish and WC:

This is what was removed by swishing:

And back in the tank with new saltwater:

I didn't even bother testing until the water stopped looking like mud after swishing them off. It's surprising how nasty that water gets.

 

[mjt82]

Just fyi: I started with dry Pukani in my 100g back in April.
As of right now I'm dealing with a dino problem. What your going to find over the first few months is that your tank will run extremely low as far as no3 and po4. I also run an oversized skimmer in my system. Algae outbreaks were easy to deal with, with just some turbo snails, but the system has always struggled with maintaining nutrient levels that weren't rock bottom. I'm having to dose po4 and no3 because of the lack of biodiversity pukani brings. The system is just too sterile. This opens the door for dinos.
If you can seed your sand and/or sump with sand from a mature system I would highly recommend it. You're going to want all those creepy crawlies. Don't let your system run at starving levels or you'll have trouble with sps corals and risk a possible dino outbreak.

Did you add any sort of bacterial starter culture to your system? I'm going to be adding some live rock from my already established system in addition to this (albeit only 10 lbs, maybe), but I plan to add a Prodibio start-up along with it. I also plan to add some pod starter cultures as well! I'm hoping all of this will help me combat algae and boost my bio-filtration once I get the rock in the tank.

 

[XNavyDiver]

I did a fishless cycle with Dr. Tim's.
I think tossing in rock from an older system is also a good plan, and yes, pods and the such are also good. The more biodiversity you can establish from the start the better.

 

[Jlentz]

I added live sand activator and other critters from ipsf and gulf coast.

 

[mjt82]

I did a fishless cycle with Dr. Tim's.
I think tossing in rock from an older system is also a good plan, and yes, pods and the such are also good. The more biodiversity you can establish from the start the better.

Agreed regarding the biodiversity! Thanks for the input!!

 

[mjt82]

I decided to stop LC for now. I did add 1 cup of GFO, though, as well as a filter sock to hopefully catch some of the precipitate and keep it off of the rock. I have plenty of test reagents (I thought I was low), so I think I'm going to test every other day and see if the GFO is taking care of the phosphate. At the point the GFO is keeping the phosphate low, I'm putting the rock in!

 

[mjt82]

Well, no test results this morning... I accidentally knocked one of the powerheads over in the tank and blew white dust precipitate off of the rocks and clouded the water up a bit... it'll be cleared up by the time I get home, and I'll check it then. Of note, running the filter sock clears the water up REALLY quick... I'd recommend doing that.

 

[Jlentz]

Well, no test results this morning... I accidentally knocked one of the powerheads over in the tank and blew white dust precipitate off of the rocks and clouded the water up a bit... it'll be cleared up by the time I get home, and I'll check it then. Of note, running the filter sock clears the water up REALLY quick... I'd recommend doing that.

This last time I ran a brs reactor with filter floss in it. Very good at sucking up the LC dust.

 

[mjt82]

Tonight's test result: 12.

When converted to phosphate, I get 0.036! I'm going to test daily to see if the GFO is keeping the phosphate in that range... If so, it's going in the tank this weekend!!

 

[mjt82]

Tonight's test result: 18.

That's 0.055 phosphate. Up a little bit. Not awful, but still up. I'll test again tomorrow afternoon and see where it moves to. If it's slowly creeping up, I may go back to LC. For now I'm holding off on dosing the LC.

 

[mjt82]

Tonight: 14.

That's 0.04 phosphate.

I think I'm gonna plan to add the rock this weekend! I'll test between now and then, but going to keep running GFO. Looks like I have most of the phosphate issue resolved! I have Prodibio on the way - I think once I get the rock in the tank and the way I want it I'll add it in.

 

[mjt82]

14 again tonight!

 

[zack801]

Any update on this?

 

[mjt82]

The rock has been in my tank for about 3 months now. I tested phosphate yesterday, and it was 0.037 per my Hanna checker. That’s with me feeding very heavily. I don’t think there is a significant amount of phosphate leaching from the rock. I’d say the curing process was a success, and I didn’t use any acid!

 

[mjt82]

A quick update, as I’m linking this thread to my build/progress thread....

I was running GFO until recently, but stopped, as I got a test result of 0 on my Hanna ULR phos checker! I’d say that there’s no significant leach of phosphate or nitrate from the Pukani. The stuff is amazing, and I’d use it again - The only problem is that apparently Pukani was effected by the export bans, which is a total bummer!!