VannM Posted November 6, 2014 Share Posted November 6, 2014 Hi all, About how long should I expect it to take for dry rock to become seeded in an established tank? I have a 12 gal that has been set up for a few years and I am getting ready to start a 28 gal that I have had empty for a couple of years. Id rather not have to buy a bunch of live rock from a pet store because I dont know what kind of algae problems I will get out of it. I have some dry rock from when I tried to set up my 28 gal a couple of years ago and was thinking about putting it in my 12 gal to make it live. Is it even possible to do something like this? Should I just buy a large chunk of live rock from the pet store and chance getting some bad critters? Thanks for any input -Vann Link to comment
VannM Posted November 6, 2014 Author Share Posted November 6, 2014 Also, I am not sure if it matters or not, but the tank that I have had setup for a while only has one brittle starfish in it and I hardly ever do water changes. And by hardly ever, I mean never. I only do top offs when they are needed. I am not even sure if any snails or crabs are left in the tank. I tested the water last week and it looked good, other than having a high ph value so I added a bag of chemipure blue. Link to comment
bubblealgae Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 how many lbs of rock is in the 12 gal? what else is in the 12 gal? are you taking down the 12 gal when you setup the 28? you might be handling this transition the wrong way... knowing these questions can help answer you better Link to comment
VannM Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 how many lbs of rock is in the 12 gal? what else is in the 12 gal? are you taking down the 12 gal when you setup the 28? you might be handling this transition the wrong way... knowing these questions can help answer you better I am not sure how much rock is in the 12 gal. Probably around 10 lbs or so. I dont plan on taking down the 12 gal. I have had it for a while and its not really in the way. I might test the water tonight and see how its looking. The only life I have in the 12 gal is a brittle starfish. The starfish is looking like he may be outgrowing the 12gal, so I may move him over to the bigger tank when it gets up and running. Link to comment
Boggers Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 If there is a starfish in there living you can add the dry rock to the 12 and make it "live" however, if you do not see any pods around there is not much diversity in that rock. If no pods I would buy a small rock from a LFS and add it with the dry rock Link to comment
bubblealgae Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 you could split the rock in the 12 gal add half to the 28 and replace what rock you took from the 12 with dry rock then add the remaning dry rock to the 28 will work just as well just add life to the 28 slowly as the 5 lbs of rock in there will only be enough to handle maybe 1 fish for a month or so feed light in beginning Link to comment
VannM Posted November 11, 2014 Author Share Posted November 11, 2014 Thanks for the help. Link to comment
aquariumlover10 Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 I would order a few pounds from here to help with seeding www.tbsaltwater.com Link to comment
wow.such.chris Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Dry rock will save you money but not from algae in my experience Link to comment
{8ry} Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I seeded dry rock from a few pieces of live rock I bought from Petco. My tank has been up and running for aprox. 4 months now and the dry rock just getting to the point where you can't really tell the difference between it and the live rock I bought. If you're patient and don't increase the bio-load from your 12 gal to the 28 gal, you'll be fine seeding the dry rock from the existing live rock. Just take it slow when adding new fish. Link to comment
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