Seeding new dry rock tank with live rock

[aaron186]

I am upgrading my 10 gal to a new 40B. I am getting ready to fill it and start the cycle. I know a lot of people suggest seeding a tank with dry rock using a piece of live rock. I have 10lbs of live rock in my old tank, however all of my rocks have corals attached to them. I assume adding a small piece of rock with a ricordea or zoa on it will be death to that coral? Should I try to cut the rock to remove the corals and add the live rock? Or should I just try to cycle my tank with dry rock and biospira? I would prefer not to spend money on new live rock from LFS

[Simulated Fish]

I am upgrading my 10 gal to a new 40B. I am getting ready to fill it and start the cycle. I know a lot of people suggest seeding a tank with dry rock using a piece of live rock. I have 10lbs of live rock in my old tank, however all of my rocks have corals attached to them. I assume adding a small piece of rock with a ricordea or zoa on it will be death to that coral? Should I try to cut the rock to remove the corals and add the live rock? Or should I just try to cycle my tank with dry rock and biospira? I would prefer not to spend money on new live rock from LFS

Depending ow What dry rock you have in the tank and how clean it is, the coral may be fine. As long as the bacteria is rubist and your not over dosi g ammonia or having die off from the dry rock using a peice from your current tank should be fine.

 

Just keep a close eye on the health of the coral, ammonia and nitrites. If you have a LFS that carries microbact7 or something similar I would get it. $10 is nothing for a little security In this hobby.

[cruiZe]

I did a similar upgrade as you Aaron- from 15g to 40B. You can check out my thread how I did the transition. I did it slowly over a few weeks because I was paranoid. It worked great for me moving most of the LR to new tank to seed the dry rock, while leaving LR with corals, and fish in the small tank.

 

Recently I've been reading about others doing the same thing - the consensus seems to be - Dry rock in new tank + existing live rock, you can move everything right away. Dry rock, if its clean and dry- shouldn't do anything.

 

The caution comes with the sand, that's where big issues are. If you get new sand that's easiest- I reused my sand and rinsed it MANY MANY MANY times cuz it was disgusting once I mixed it up.

[gulfsurfer101]

I upgraded from my 20l to a 75g in a day. The key was too use all dry sand and rock in the 75g and then add all the live rock fish and coral from the 20l and spread a few cups of old sand from the 20l over the dry sand. Almost like a very fine layer of old sand across the new stuff. Use all new water so off to a clean slate. Do not add any more fish tob your tank till after your diatome bloom. You can add a bigger cuc to help out with that btw. Your going to need then in your bigger tank anyways. Use good quality rock free of po and rinse your sand really well and you'll be just fine!

[ajmckay]

Totally agree Cruize.

 

If you have clean, dry rock (in other words you look at the rock and besides some dust it doesn't look super dirty or have dead things on it) you can add that to the new tank along with new sand and immediately port over your old tank inhabitants. The only reason you can get away with this is because you're keeping the bio-load and the biological filter the same. It's the exact same as if you were to add a new piece of dry rock to your existing tank. If you're running an HOB power filter or something on the 10g you'll want to set that up on the 40b initially as well and phase it out after a week or 2 if that's your plan.

 

If you have "dirty" dry rock such as most pukani (often has dead algae, sponges, and sometimes whole dead animals stuck in it) or similar then you'll need to "seed" the new rock and let it cure for several weeks - that means all the dead stuff needs to decompose and break down - very similar to curing "uncured live rock" that's straight from the ocean. If you add dirty rock to an established tank the ammonia could spike and cause issues.

 

Good luck!

[alexm2251]

p[personally i would buy the new rock and use biospira i have had bad encounters with bristle worms and bubble algae and aptasia.

[cruiZe]

p[personally i would buy the new rock and use biospira i have had bad encounters with bristle worms and bubble algae and aptasia.

 

Dry rock won't have anything on it. His hitch hikers from 10g tank are whatever he has now, so that's not changing anything.

 

I forgot to plug reefcleaners earlier, Aaron, if you didn't buy dry rock yet, check out reefcleaners. That's what I used and the majority here would agree it's second to none.