Curing live rock, starting new SW TANK

[Spydersweb]

Hello all,
So, I am of course new to SW aquariums, and I have a couple of questions in regards to curing live rock. So, I’m about to set up my 90 gallon FOWLR aquarium in about a month or two, I already have all the equipment, just need to finish my basement first.
Anyway, I’m going to start curing my live rock in one or two 30 gallon trash cans.
- Once they’re cured, and I’ve added them to the aquarium, I can immediately start adding fish, right?
- If I add regular sand, do I need to worry about the sand not being cured?
- I’ll have about 90 lbs or more being cured, but the volume of the trash can(s) will be significantly less than the aquarium’s, so will that still be enough to start off with a small fish or two, or will there’s not be enough bacteria because of the volume of water?
- If the aquarium setup is delayed for a few weeks, to keep the live rock going, do I need to keep adding ammonia, or feed it with cocktail shrimp to keep the bacterial colony going?

if these are dumb questions, I apologize, but thank you so much to whatever help I can get with these questions!

 

[lapin]

......
- Once they’re cured, and I’ve added them to the aquarium, I can immediately start adding fish, right?

Yes

- If I add regular sand, do I need to worry about the sand not being cured?

No

- I’ll have about 90 lbs or more being cured, but the volume of the trash can(s) will be significantly less than the aquarium’s, so will that still be enough to start off with a small fish or two, or will there’s not be enough bacteria because of the volume of water?

It will be fine

- If the aquarium setup is delayed for a few weeks, to keep the live rock going, do I need to keep adding ammonia, or feed it with cocktail shrimp to keep the bacterial colony going?

Some pellets or flakes every week would be nice but not really needed.

if these are dumb questions, I apologize, but thank you so much to whatever help I can get with these questions!

No question is dumb

Now I have one for you.
What do you mean by live rock and having to cure it?

 

[Spydersweb]

Thanks for your input!
I wanted to be able to “hit the floor running” once I’m able to physically set up the aquarium, so I wanted to take dry rock, seeded with some live rock, and cycle it outside of the aquarium, then when the aquarium is set up, I’ll add all of the cycled (now) live rock to the aquarium, so I can already have it ready for habitation. I may wait a week or so to make sure the parameters are stable, but, I figure I can use this “down time” to get things going.

 

[BeejReef]

Great plan! Great advise!

What condition is your rock in? Very often, curing and cycling can happen at the same time. If you have old cruddy rock, the biomass baked on it will serve as the nutrition for the cycle. If it's pristine white rock, the ammonia source is shrimp/flake/pure ammonia. Either way, once ammonia and nitrate go away, you're about done.

 

[Unthinkable]

Are you planning on a quarantine tank for your fish? If so I'd also recommend starting your QT as well. you can toss a sponge or a filter pad in with your rocks to seed bacteria for the QT at the same time you cycle/cure your rocks.

 

[Spydersweb]

That’s a great idea! I think I’m going to do that as well