3+ year old dried rock into established tank?

[Hyphnx]

Greetings!

I had a large tank about 8 years ago. Ended up breaking it down and kept some of the rock in a 5 gallon bucket. It's all dried now and has been dried for over 3 years. I currently have a 28g JBJ with just Tonga right now and was wondering if it would be safe to add a rock from the bucket to the 28g without kicking off a cycle.

 

[EmdeReef]

You may want to cure the dry rock just in case. The issue isn’t so much about the cycle (as long as you keep old rocks) as it is about potential phosphate etc. if you add a bit of lanthanum chloride to the RODI while curing it will remove phosphates in a week or two.

 

[Cment]

You may want to cure the dry rock just in case. The issue isn’t so much about the cycle (as long as you keep old rocks) as it is about potential phosphate etc. if you add a bit of lanthanum chloride to the RODI while curing it will remove phosphates in a week or two.

You can do this. In the past I have also just soaked in a bleach/RODI bath for a day or 2, followed by a soak in just RODI with prime then let sun dry for a few days. Should be good to go after that and not cause any nuisance algae or cycle in anyway.

 

[Hyphnx]

Well after numerous weeks and water changes, parameters are in check. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate all check 0. Phosphate is 0... There are no fish in the tank but Xenia. Will probably create a build thread.