Curious about why remove it at all? Any live rock you add will be the best substrate the tank will ever see, why remove any of it once added
A few weeks to transfer all the bacteria to the dry rocks but it'll take years of contact to bring the white rocks up to half the potential per square inch of that cured portion
for readers who wonder why there's bickering over old vs new cycling science, here's a recap:
-old cycling science: factors nitrite in reef tank cycles.
new cycling science doesn't even own the kit. See any post from Randy HF on reef tank nitrite, search out his name + the word 'nitrite' and look for resounding themes. All information you've read, and I can google, regarding marine tank cycle finish dates involves testing for and assuring nitrite is at zero, as if it mattered in a marine tank cycle. that's #1 differential. old cycling science must know your nitrite levels to determine cycle status and new cycling science does not.
-old cycling science doesn't allow for live rock skip cycles, live rock always has devastating dieoff that registers as API .25 ammonia=the cycle is broken. we're approaching page ten here of constant examples of live rock transfer cycles never breaking. it will be that way on page fifty, a true pattern on file/
-old cycling science believes in reef tank cycle stalling (which means you can't pinpoint the start date for all reef tank cycles they're by old rules open-ended test-based waits to total zero nitrite AND ammonia) search: stalled reef tank cycle. half a million returns, 2 million posts with API at .25 = the cycle must be broken.
All articles you've read on cycling and all articles I've googled, including Dr. Tim's macna talk on youtube involves supposed cycle stalls. There are NO articles ever written about aligning forty pages of reef tanks for an exact start date cycle, some determined before they were even assembled. here's a thread doing exactly that:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-unstick-any-seemingly-stuck-cycle.742202/
new cycling science (the link just above aligning reef tank cycles on an exact start date, close-ended known completion date, with no testing) does not believe in cycle stalling. see the thread above.
-old cycling science: the ammonia drop line from a common cycling chart is not true, cycles take anywhere from 3 weeks to 90 days (how long they took to convince api to read yellow is what that means)
new cycling science: go read the threads produced by Dan and Taricha regarding average ammonia control timeframes for common cycling bac, how long is it taking? How many days did we wait in the 40 page false stall thread to begin verifying cycles? how many days is the ammonia drop line on a common cycling chart? (10-12 days)
-old cycling science: picks and chooses when API ammonia is to be believed. Sometimes in a given post API is deemed correct; other times, several nuances to the test such as drop size, fil amounts in the vial, reagent shaking, expiration dates, wait time before rendering the reading are listed by the same parties as why API reads incorrect to the masses. the determination will change to fit the flow of the thread after they join. *expecting a reef tank's nh4 levels to read zero at ALL Times is the #1 hallmark rule from old cycling science. when it reads .25 and that amount is deemed correct by umpires, it means a cycle is broken. even if the full tank is running harmlessly.
here are nine pages of false ammonia alarms triggered solely by the paragraph above on old vs new cycling science, nh4 variance is tripping them all up, none had a broken cycle:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sustained-ammonia-spikes-are-misreads.802470/
new cycling science does not expect nh4 to be zero in anyone's setting-we don't even require the kit to be ran. we know the mix of test kit drift, error, unstated adulterants added during cycle panic (such as Prime, which causes false readings for ammonia) will never end so viewing the cycle against those kits is a total waste of time. we can use other means to determine cycle readiness
-Visual cue cycle verification. old cycling science does not know that growths of common marine uglies phases only happen after ammonia control was established, not prior. there's an order of ops to things that deposit on a reef surface, old cycling science only cares if API says your ammonia and nitrite is zero, they don't factor visual benthic growth timing.
someone search out one single example on the entire internet of a cycle umpire validating a cycle close date solely off a tank pic (no test reading) where common algae or cyano or diatoms have bloomed in the tank-in-question. old cycling science still has that keeper testing and trying to align api with the truth; new cycling science knows any reef running long enough to have new invasion growths has ran past the date a cycling chart shows ammonia to be controlled, so it's cycled.
there are about fifteen more differences to state but it would take up 2 pages.
does old vs new cycling science seem to matter now? it influences purchase markets to the tune of millions of dollars
old cycling science adherents are constantly buying replacement bottle bac for claimed dead bottles, new cycling science (the forty page false stall thread) has NEVER advised anyone to go buy another bottle of bacteria: how are our results?
there's neverending conflict between new and old cycling science. its a race for the best procedure for this aspect of reefing (to save the most animals)
