Question on Cycling Dry Rock

[thewalkingdad]

Question: Is heat and water movement required to cycle dry rock? Will the rocks still be cured and cycled after four months without heat/water movement?

I've had a few months of lead time to when my Planet Aquarium will be built/delivered.

I have some marco rock sitting in multiple 5-gallon buckets of saltwater. I ghost feed the buckets with pellet food daily and whenever I harvest my live BBS, I toss in the BBS shells and leftover water as well. I have dosed some Microbacter7 and BioSpira into the buckets. The buckets stay covered because they stink to high heaven and I want to reduce evaporation.

I'm also QT'ing a few fish using the TTM. This QT method is consuming all of my spare heaters. When possible, I try to keep heat and movement in the buckets, but it's not always possible. Room temp is about 68 degrees.

Am I wasting my time with these buckets?

 

[LeftyReefer]

If these are brand new marco rocks, then no need to really cure them. Just power wash them clean and maybe soak for a day or three, but you don't really need to cure new dry marco rocks. If these rocks have old/previous growth on them, then yes, you will need to cure them.

As for cycling it in a bucket, you can, but again it isn't necessary as you can just cycle the entire tank after you've aquascaped it and filled it with water. you only need to pre-cycle the rocks if you are are looking to skip cycle the new tank by placing pre-cycled (live) rocks into your DT and adding fish immediately.

I started my tank with new marco/caribsea rocks and didn't cure them, or cycle them before going into my DT.
I just cycled my entire tank with bottled bacteria, which took less than a week.

Cycling new dry rocks in a bucket for 4 months seems like a lot of work, that isn't really necessary considering how quickly you can cycle a tank with bottled bacteria now. if they were live rocks to begin with, I can see the advantage in keeping the stuff in them alive, but you are using new dry rock, correct?

 

[cshouston]

I let my dry rock cycle in a bin with ammonia and Microbacter7 before setting up my reef tank. I did have a powerhead circulating the water, but no heater. I don’t have specific data to share, but I do recall hearing or reading that water movement is important. It’s my opinion that doing this in advance is partially why I haven’t had much in the way of nuisance algae or other problems that plague new reef tanks, as the dry rock was well populated with microbes before going in, and no light was put on them for several months.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

An air stone is enough in a bucket. A heater will help bacteria take off faster. Don’t waste salt and use about 80% of what you would use mixing for a reef

 

[laverda]

Flow will definitely help.

 

[Illini_Fan]

I let my dry rock cycle in a bin with ammonia and Microbacter7 before setting up my reef tank. I did have a powerhead circulating the water, but no heater. I don’t have specific data to share, but I do recall hearing or reading that water movement is important. It’s my opinion that doing this in advance is partially why I haven’t had much in the way of nuisance algae or other problems that plague new reef tanks, as the dry rock was well populated with microbes before going in, and no light was put on them for several months.

@cshouston -- might be a stupid question on my part since I'm a newbie, but did you get any coralline algae growth on the rock's while they sat in the bin?

 

[Pico Reef Geek]

I was thinking of doing something similar, just putting some salt water, ammonia, and bacteria mix in with my dry rock. I would just cycle in the tank but I ordered one from Ocean Box Design and it takes time to be crafted and shipped. So with everything else getting here before the tank, I was like well no harm in letting the dry rock get a head start.

 

[UtahReefer]

As you'll see folks have their own preferences in how they do this. I use Aquaforest products so that's my approach. Currently I'm dark cooking the rock for a Waterbox 125.4 I will be putting up in August. Rock goes in the Brute can along with a heater and flow. Then I throw in a major chunk of food. Can is dosed with AF BioS everyday for two weeks straight to start the Bac population. After two weeks I test for Ammonia and nitrates to confirm the Bac is working. Then I will begin to add as much bio diversity to the can as possible until August (AF Life Source, other bac). In this process during the first week when you take off the lid the water stinks like rotting food and is cloudy. I know the bac is working because by week 2 much of the oder is gone and the water becomes clear. All along the time period I will add a cube of food each week to keep the bac population growing. After the initial two weeks I do a 5 gallon water change with the water I've taken out of my current system. The very last two weeks of the process I will use fresh salt water for the WC's.

 

[Spicy Reef]

Definitely can't hurt to precycle, especially if you have the time.
My gut tells me water movement is necessary. A small wavemaker or pump or air stone should do it. A pump might add a tiny bit of heat

 

[ReefEco]

I cycled the marco rock for my tank for about 2 months in a container, and definitely used a powerhead and a heater, bacteria and ammonia source. Good question as to whether the heater or water movement is "needed" - i'm sure the bacteria you are cultivating might not stricktly need it - but higher temps will help bacteria grow faster, and I would imagine stagnant water is not ideal for getting water nutrients you are adding to all the nooks and crannies of the rock you want to populate with bacteria. It is also unclear if taking the rock from room temps to reef temps immediately will have any real effect. Best practice is probably to simulate the reef environment as closely as possible when cycling dry rock, minus the light, so that means heater and flow.

 

[c_ronius]

I try to get conditions similar to the end result tank for the entire cooking... flow, temp, and water quality. Slowly introducing mild lighting. Once the light goes on, the rocks also now have tops and bottoms. From here on the rocks stay more or less in their same orientation, sunny side and dark side.

 

[ReefEco]

The buckets stay covered because they stink to high heaven and I want to reduce evaporation.

If they are really stinking that bad, you might reduce feeding/BBS by product additions and do a water change. A strong bad smell might mean something is amiss with the water. Normally you wouldn't experience much smell at all during this kind of cycle...

 

[Thumbster]

I just watched a video of Dr Tim (can’t remember his last name). He was speaking at a conference somewhere. He makes the fish tank cycling and bacteria products.

He said to speed up bacteria production, raise temps to 85° and lower salinity to 1.010ish. Can’t remember exactly.

Lowered salinity will help the bacteria because they form like a shell to protect themselves from the salt and that takes energy and the raised temp makes them reproduce faster.

He also said that 50° is where the cutoff is. Below that and different bacteria than what we need for our tanks start to form.

 

[Pico Reef Geek]

I was thinking of doing something similar, just putting some salt water, ammonia, and bacteria mix in with my dry rock. I would just cycle in the tank but I ordered one from Ocean Box Design and it takes time to be crafted and shipped. So with everything else getting here before the tank, I was like well no harm in letting the dry rock get a head start.

Ok, update. I did two bowls, one with just dry rock, the other with dry sand and dry rock. The one with sand saw its ammonia levels drop much faster.

No flow in either but it was clear warmth mattered way more. I ended up moving the sand and all the rock into a small aquarium (Petco had a sale this weekend and I got a 2.5 gallon for $10 -- that's cheaper than my glass bowls and my bf is happy to have his bowls back lol). And I am just letting it all hang out there for the next week with a cheap little heater before my main tank arrives.

 

[k2-]

Folks - I need help here. I just setup my brute, Threw in a bunch of dry rock, a 10 lb bag of live sand laying around, water from my tank from water chage and setup the heater and flow and covered up the tank.

Do I dose my bacteria? Does anything need to be done here?

 

[ReefEco]

Folks - I need help here. I just setup my brute, Threw in a bunch of dry rock, a 10 lb bag of live sand laying around, water from my tank from water chage and setup the heater and flow and covered up the tank.

Do I dose my bacteria? Does anything need to be done here?

Water change water will likely have a start of bacteria and nutrients to keep it alive (plus the live sand), but adding some extra bacteria wouldn't hurt - could speed things up if you have a deadline. Just make sure to add some nutrients regularly to keep the bacteria going - like a pinch of pellets every couple days.

 

[k2-]

Thanks , I will add some more bacteria in a couple of days but meanwhile water change and food.

I opened the can today and smells like Ammonia - so something is going on. Last night i did add some more live rock from my established tank and would continue with weekly water change.

 

[ReefEco]

You'll probably get a small cycle if you are adding LR. Assuming your aren't lighting it, remember that anything alive on your rock that needed light will die off and decay, and too large an ammonia spike might create a cascade of die off for other non-photosynthetic critters like sponges, pods, etc.

 

[k2-]

@ReefEco - I have this thing pretty good shape after 2 days (by that i mean no ammonia - Would you recommend opening it up and letting some light go through ? I wouldnt like the cascade effect so would like the rock to get nice and comfy in 3 weeks for a nice new tank