Rock Change?

[A_Poythress]

Hey guys, I have been in the hobby for right at a year now and finally placed my first coral in my tank. I realized though that my rock work does not really have a lot of room for coral (see picture) and I really want to change that. How can/should I handle changing the rock in my tank? I want something new like reef saver from BRS that will give me a lot more surface area without a lot of shadowing like I have now.

At the end of the day, I want less bulky rock and more room for coral. Is this possible?

 

[A_Poythress]

Side note. I did not wipe the outside of the glass before taking the picture. It's clean now though

 

[cracker]

I have changed out rock. the advice I got was to do it 1 piece at a times & wait for "some" time before doing another. So what livestock do You have now? A frogspawn as the only coral? If the bioload is small it would help.

 

[DeniseAndy]

The rock will hold the majority of your live bacteria and pod population. You do not want to lose that. It will cycle your tank. Best option is as cracker said and do small piece wait a couple weeks, do another, etc. If you cannot do that due to size restrictions, I would get a bucket and put new rock into it, add saltwater, add pump for circulation, and keep lid on container to cure the rock over 3-4 weeks. If you want to jump start it, add in some live bacteria or some of your old rock.

I assume by picture there is no sump. Bummer as this is where I throw my dry rock to make live for any pico or other tank I set up.

 

[A_Poythress]

Yeah, so the one coral, two clowns, two firefish and the shrimp. I wanted to do it within the next couple of months before I added more life to the tank.

 

[A_Poythress]

The rock will hold the majority of your live bacteria and pod population. You do not want to lose that. It will cycle your tank. Best option is as cracker said and do small piece wait a couple weeks, do another, etc. If you cannot do that due to size restrictions, I would get a bucket and put new rock into it, add saltwater, add pump for circulation, and keep lid on container to cure the rock over 3-4 weeks. If you want to jump start it, add in some live bacteria or some of your old rock.

I assume by picture there is no sump. Bummer as this is where I throw my dry rock to make live for any pico or other tank I set up.

I wish I had a sump. Simply no room in my current set up. Hopefully, within the next year, I will have a sump on this system.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I have cured more times to count in an old salt bucket with lid and works fine too.

 

[A_Poythress]

I have cured more times to count in an old salt bucket with lid and works fine too.

So if I cure it all in the bucket for about a month could I just swap out everything in one day? Will this not shock the tank?

 

[DeniseAndy]

As long as the rock is cured with a source of bacteria to start. I would actually put one of your larger pieces in the bucket with the new rinsed rock. This will get bacteria going and get that dead rock live. Within a month, you could swap out without issue. You may have to give a piece of flake food once a week to keep some bacteria feeding. With your bioload, I would be comfortable doing this.

 

[A_Poythress]

As long as the rock is cured with a source of bacteria to start. I would actually put one of your larger pieces in the bucket with the new rinsed rock. This will get bacteria going and get that dead rock live. Within a month, you could swap out without issue. You may have to give a piece of flake food once a week to keep some bacteria feeding. With your bioload, I would be comfortable doing this.

Awesome. Thanks for the advice and info!

 

[DeniseAndy]

Curing rock for ridding of po4 and getting live are two different processes. You need to keep an ammonia source to get the live rock process active. That is what the current live rock and food will do.

 

[cracker]

Great advice !

 

[BellaCoop]

With my old tank before I did any type of rock change I would let it sit in the Sump for a Long Period of time. It seemed to always work out pretty well. I also had a larger sump so I have a fudge and was able to get it going pretty fast.