Question about rock

[TheEngineer]

So you would keep rock in a bucket and maintain it for months instead of just letting it dry out? Better have a heater and filtration and water flow and light if you have coral you want to keep and want the bacteria to remain alive.
Seems like a lot of time and effort, rather than being able to seed the rock once it gets placed in the tank with live rock and maybe a few pieces of live rock.

Yep. Think about the terminology "seed" the rock. When you plant a seed, do you immediately get a plant out of it or does it take time to grow and even more time before it produces a fruit or flowers? Bacteria is the same. BRS has been doing some studies on this more recently and have found one of the keys to the best tanks is that the rock has been really well aged.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

So back to my question lol is there a downside to letting my rock dry out so I can aquascape?

 

[TheEngineer]

Yes, your live rock is now dead rock.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Well that was the point of storing it in saltwater buckets, to let everything die off bc I had GHA. I just mean going from being wet to drying out completely. Is that doing anything to it?

 

[TheEngineer]

Well that was the point of storing it in saltwater buckets, to let everything die off bc I had GHA. I just mean going from being wet to drying out completely. Is that doing anything to it?

Aside from killing off the bacteria and any other critters on it, nope.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

So it’s a bad idea? Lol what would happen if I put the dry rock into a new tank? While it’s cycling? Sorry for all the questions! Just weighing out all my options

 

[TheEngineer]

No need to apologize, this is the entire reason the forum exists

It's not a bad idea, but it isn't a good one to dry out well cured rock. Why do you need to dry it out?

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Well I just meant I’m going to be drilling and putting acrylic rods into the rock to make structures. Can’t exactly have that in a bucket after I have it set up ya know? So it would likely dry out. My tank wont be ready for 8-12 weeks

 

[TheEngineer]

I gotcha. Can you wait to do the scape until the tank is in?

 

[Sobo's Reef]

I gotcha. Can you wait to do the scape until the tank is in?

I mean, I guess I could. I just figured I had time to kill so I was gonna start that project since it always takes me forever lol

 

[TheEngineer]

I know all about the itch