Dark cure nitrogen cycle

[GatorGreg]

So you bought ocean rock at a premium price. Then you purposely let everything on it that you paid that premium price for and that needed light die. Gotcha.

I am still not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here. It seems like you consumed a lot of different information from different methods and are trying to apply it to your setup and you’re way over complicating this.

I wish you the best of luck

 

[GatorGreg]

You're setting yourself up for a whopper of an ugly stage if you put all that algae-bare rock with all those dormant spores on it into the light.

If you want to get rid of nitrates and phosphates, grow something that uses them up (i.e. chaeto) and remove that. The trouble with trying to do 0 water changes isn't nitrates and phosphates- those are easy. The trouble is various organic compounds and coral warfare toxins that tend to build up. Live rock you've killed a bunch of things on won't fix that.

You should probably be doing quite large water changes to get those nitrates down- you don't want to kill all the beneficial life on that rock. Detritivores, pods, cryptic sponges, and so on.

Yeah I’m not sure what information OP has consumed that let them down this dusty trail.

 

[LovinlifeinGuam]

I understand where he's coming from. The whole BRS series confused a lot of people i feel. I saw it and felt there were several flaws in their methodology as i remember. I believe if you have nitrate, the bacteria won't all die but probably won't spread to the dry rock very quickly either. I really don't agree with killing off all photosynthetic organisms by keeping the live ocean rock in the dark. Photosynthetic organisms have a place in an aquarium. A tank with only nitrifying bacteria would not be very diverse to say the least anyway but unfortunately many newer reefers believe nitrifying bacteria are the only bacteria you need for a healthy tank.
I really don't think the method they concluded to be best is so at all. Just my 2 cents.