Seeding with live rock post case?

missourimud

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Apologies in advance if this is somewhere but I cannot seem to find.
I set up my tank with dry rock, fish have been in for approx. 6 weeks.
it just went through a slight diatom phase and everything is cleaned back up.
I have been reading all the benefits of live rock and was thinking of adding like a 10 pound chunk for long term benefit. Is this ok to do so?
just FYI I have 75g with 60lbs of dry rock and 70lbs of “live” sand when it was started.
Thanks everyone
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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add double :)

really the more the better. cured from another tank it just lifts over into yours and has zero percent chance of dying off or harming anything.

the handiest trick about dealing with cured live rocks can be found from our nerdy pico reef videos where we drain the entire reef tank empty, corals and all (no fish, its a rock study + corals) for 30 mins as tidal outflow testing. cold jerky in air half an hour

we refill it, post vid the next day of a perfect reef, over and over.

within that 30 mins the rock could've sat in someones trunk in a pile as we drove home, and set it up skip cycle. yet if we set a poll asking is it possible to drive live rock home from the pet store in the trunk and not recycle, 100% of people will say no.

reef forum posters are finicky like that w their cycling rules.

but because surface area mechanics are not finicky, draining a reef tank for 30 mins is the same as moving one across town with no water or moving a few rocks from a friends tank into our own, and those are usually done as wet transports- considered ultra-nice in pico reef circles.

Pico reefer's live rock isn't different than large tankers, in fact the lack of water volume amplifies the test better than a large tank because no dilution is there to pad ammonia issues, the tank will just die. there is no harm in moving a few rocks into your tank, skip cyclers build reefs just like this using the technique:
 
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missourimud

missourimud

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@brandon429
So I did in fact get 10lbs or live rock from gulf live. It took 5days shipping to come. Was very pungent when I opened the bag. Gave everything a quick toothbrush scrub have a cheap filter going @77 degrees and a small light all in a bucket.
I did a 100% water change after a day and did a test yesterday getting
10-20 ppm (salivary) nitrate
5 ammonia
5 nitrite both api

my question is am I waiting till the ammonia and nitrite drop and it spikes my nitrate before I can add to my dt correct?
or am I thinking about this wrong?
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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100% on track

be occasionally lifting up the rock and smelling it

when it wafts clean that's your real baseline, in about a week to ten days of water submersion curing. that's the ideal way, its not by those tests they rarely show zero for anyone, no reason they get more accurate here for the low end reads.

as of now and for sure based on smell they're ammonia curing, but with pre removal I bet it stops in three days. water change a few times

was also going to add: per todays recent headlines please do not sniff directly over a brown palythoid

pick an innocuous zone for sniff eval. its better than all ammonia test kits well maybe not a tuned seneye
 
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