Dry rock in new set up

[Aldo Garcia]

Hello All,

I've been out of the hobby for almost 8 years. I have a few questions.  I got a 40Gal Breeder, My buddy is selling me his established 10 gal with about 10 pounds of LR,LS and 2 clowns.  So what we plan on doing is taking 25 gallons of his water from his 120gal and adding it to my tank with 15 gallons of new RO saltwater. I plan on picking up 20 lbs of dry rock from Bulk reef supply. I also have 40 lbs of carib sea ocean direct live sand. I don't plan on putting in the fish right away.

So my questions are.

 

1. Would i have to cycle/Cure the rock prior? or would the tank be already established? 

2. How long before i can get cuc?

3. how long before i can add the fish?

 

Thank you in Advance.

[Subsea]

I like your game plan of using an established tanks water to introduce various free swimming bacteria.  If you are using an established tanks sand to further seed bacteria.  What does CaribSea “Ocean Direct Live Sand” have in it that you have not already added?

 

I suspect you might not even see a cycle.  Let the tank bioindicators talk to you, visible algae is a good bioindicator.  That is when you get snails.  If you get them too soon, they will starve and die.  After the nitrogen cycle is a progression of different algae.  In most tanks, it takes on the form of of different algae species specific to your tank ecosystem.  Different algae’s would include diatoms, GHA and too many more.

 

My cycle is different than yours because I use uncured diver collected Gulf live rock.  I want the micro fauna and fana to develope on this mini ecosystem.  This includes established pod populations.  So I don’t introduce fish until 3 months after cycle.

 

Your nitrogen  bacteria cycle is complete.  You can add fish.

 

Let us talk CUC.  Clean up what?   If you can stand urchins they are the best algae grazers.  If tank has limited algae they will also eat coralline algae.  I like snails that reproduce.  For sand bed maintenance, I use bristle worms and mini stars, both of which reproduce in substrate.  This feeds live food to filter feeders including coral.

 

This is uncured live rock three weeks removed from 30’ in GOM.

[Nart]

Depends on what kind of dry rocks did you get from BRS? Reef saver rocks are ready to go into a tank. You'll just need the cycle, though with your buddies live rock, sand, and water... it should be a fairly quick cycle..

If you picked up Pukani rocks.. you'll need to cure it for at least 2 months, or whenever Phosphates are in the acceptable range, around 0.025

[Clown79]

A lot of dry rock has organic material which will cause a spike.

 

Caribsea liferock doesn't. I've added this to existing tanks, I've even pre soaked it and tested the water, absolutely no ammonia spikes.

 

I wouldn't t use old sand without a thorough cleaning. Reusing old sand will cause a spike and introduce unwanted nutrients into the tank.