How long to seed dry rock?

[WaterBoxer]

My current plan with my 20 gallon high tank is to move it into a new 29g build next summer when I move at the end of my current lease. I'll be building a stand and using another 20 gallon high as a sump. I'm planning for about a 7 gallon compartment to be used as a refugium and wanted to start seeding some rock for eventual use in there and to possibly add to my new, larger tank with all the current rock that I'll be moving over.

 

I have a little over 6 pounds of dry rock sitting around in a tote and I was thinking of breaking off a piece to add to my current tank to seed with some life. I'll then use this piece in a 5.5g that'll be freed up in a couple months (being used as a nursery tank right now for some freshwater fish that just hatched) along with the rest of the dry rock and some sand. I'll probably also pick up a few more pounds of dry rock as I get closer to setting this all up.

 

This 5.5g pico will be set up as a standalone tank until next summer when it eventually gets combined with my current 20g for the 29g build. Until then it'll just have rock, sand, a powerhead, heater, and a cheap 12w Nicrew saltwater light that I got off of Amazon:

NICREW Marine Clip on Aquarium Light

 

My question I guess is two-fold:

• How much of my dry rock should I add to my current tank?
• And how long should it be in there before I can consider it 'live rock' capable of supporting life and seeding the rest of my rock?

 

I've only ever purchased live rock from a LFS or transferred it from one tank to another, so this process is a little new to me with saltwater and I want to make sure I'm not either rushing it too much or being way too careful and wasting time.

 

For reference, the only things that'll likely be going into the pico will be CUC, some other smaller inverts, and possibly some soft coral frags after a few months. Water changes will be done with water from my main tank, water parameters permitting.

 

[Subsea]

 

[Tired]

You should put as much of that dry rock as you can manage into a currently running tank, and leave it in there as long as you can. Really get things jump-started as well as possible. 

 

If by "live rock" you mean "rock that has some bacteria on it", probably a couple weeks. To actually begin to be what I would call live rock, i.e. rock with algae, bacteria, and microfauna on it, you're looking at months in an established tank to begin to approach that point. 

 

The ideal way to do this would instead be to take a piece of rock from your established tank, and put that into the new tank, as that will be far more mature than dry rock you've seeded. A few weeks in an established tank will work for bacteria and the beginnings of algae, but more maturity is better.