Pre seeding dry rock

[joeg123]

I'm planning on getting a waterbox 90.3 in a couple months, I currently have a fluval evo 13.5 thats been running for about 4 months and have dots of coralline algae all over the rocks, zoas, a torch and a hammer all doing really good fish and inverts are all doing really good too, seem to have a healthy pod and at night a load of amphipods come out I did have quite a bad ugly phase though which fingers crossed is now over

with my new tank I would like to try minimize the ugly stage and have the rock ready seeded so I can kick start the new tank, I will add my current mature rock but it's only 2 decent sized rocks so won't be enough for the big tank

I have a old clean 70 litre tank that I am planning on filling with brand new marco dry rock and placing a powerhead and heater in to cure/seed the rock in time for when I have my waterbox

Will ghost feeding with mysis be enough to get the rock cycled? I was also thinking of taking my current fluvals dirty filter floss squeezing the crud in? I did that with freshwater tanks and it pretty much instantly cycled smaller tanks

 

[lapin]

That should work. Just dont add light as that will cause alage.

 

[lapin]

Oh and howdy, welcome.....

 

[joeg123]

Oh and howdy, welcome.....

Thank you!

 

[brmreefer]

Sounds like you have a solid plan.

 

[Overbrook]

How did this work out @joeg123 ? I’d love to do essentially the same thing (30g to 90g). I’m not opposed to taking my time with it. I’m sure live rock would be better but A) it seems hard to get from good places and 2) I’m afraid of critters cause C) I like a relatively sterile look. Also, I “want” to spend several hours creating the aquascape. The first go I did a fishless cycle (Dr. Tim) and it was fine just ugly for many months and a TON of nitrates to deal with after the cycle is completed.

I’d love to hear about anyone’s experience here.