also this matters: you are absolutely required to run a dual aquarium system from here on out, if you don't, this whole effort was for nothing
tank one is your display, starting back as 100% sterile across the biome/having only ammonia-controlling bacteria at the start after you select your upcycle method. you can't add anything to this aquarium, anything, that doesn't pass through 45 day fallow and given this amount of time and $ you just enacted I wouldn't be using a 45 day fallow I'd use 90 day fallow observation from 2016 technique, as shortcuts aren't welcomed.
tank two is your functioning receiving tank. added in groups vs 1 at a time, new additions destined for your display get fallowed here for 90 days/45 if you want shortcuts. it takes longer than a month for verms to show up as hitchhikers, I recommend 90 day observations and even then a leak-through is highly likely. verm juveniles are found microscopically on everything wet you'll ever add to the reef tank.
after every group is graduated from your receiving tank it needs to be dried, sterilized then started over to receive newly vectored groups of additions destined for the display. you can't not sterilize it, and just add in a new group, that's losing crucial vector control. You started this process in the name of vector control but will leak it back in nineteen ways unless you run a dual tank setup with a startover receiving tank for each group of materials that go back among the rocks you are upcycling.
to add one single item into this tank that is wet, and hasn't passed through legit fallow assessment, is to instantly undermine the entire effort. you can't source materials for a reef tank that are free of vermitids and juveniles.
getting the ammonia control is the easy part, no thought no testing required/dump in bottle bac add twenty drops of ammonia wait ten days and you're able to carry fish among those rocks.
all the planning and mistake-prone details exist in your biosecurity approach now, per Jay's article
what required this response was the sterilization of your current rock. if it was just rearrange/remove and add some new rocks of different shapes none of this would be required. but to sterilize means you're trying to alter vectoring in the new tank, and it can only be done this way since all sourced materials in reefing have vermitid juveniles attached microscopically. they also have algae, aiptasia, dinos cells, cyano, all the things that constitute reef tank invasions. fallow screening is the only way to win given this much effort you're doing
