Questions on cycling/curing.

[Budman93]

Hey all, setting up a 29g and transferring over my fish from my current 10g nano. On my first tank I used 100% precured LR from the LFS. I lived 10min away so die off was minimal and my cycle only took about a week since i used biospira and live sand as well. This time around though I've decided to use Pukani dry rock from brs.

So it's been about 5 days with the rock in the tank. I've been ghostfeeding and ammonia is now up to 2ppm. Just added a bottle of biospira so hopefully it cuts it to zero in a day or two. The only thing that is different though is that my dry rock is still 'curing' and releasing phosphates. Now it looks like my cycle will be over much sooner than my 'curing' process so how do I know when my rock ok? I was going to wait a month, but if the tank is cycled can I add a small CUC before that? What should I be looking for to know the rock is good? Anything other than phosphate levels?

 

[Smo]

Well, by definition, your rock won't finish cycling until after it is cured. My experience with Pukani is it is filled with organic material and takes at least a month (better two) to cure. I cured my in a rubber made trash can with a power head and canister filter. I also dosed lanthanum chloride to leach out the phosphates and made several water changes. You need to test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphates to know when your rock is both cured and cycled. I really like Pukani in the DT now. So it was worth all the work and wait.

 

[tjnorthdakota]

My past experience with curing pukani was it took at least 2 months and I let it go for 3 because it was still leaching a bit after 2. When the ammonia reaches 0 and the nitrites reach 0 and your phosphates begin to level out and decrease with water changes you are done.