addition of live rock

[jag1979]

I am cycling my tank right now.

I have about 180 lbs of rock in a 180 gallon tank (total volumt about 200ish). I want to eventually get up to about 250-300lbs. should I hold off on adding things to the tank until I build my rock or can I gradually add rock later after corals and fish are inside?

 

[tangerine]

IMO,if you are adding it slowly piece by piece after yr cycling period,the tank yr size won't have much effect. however if you are thinking of adding them all later at one go,it wud better if u add them now.

 

[jag1979]

thanks, as you all know a tank this big cost a little bit, so I was just thinking of adding around 10-15 lbs every few months until I have what I need.

 

[tangerine]

if you are adding a litle at a time,shud be fine as yr beneficial bacteria shud be able to handle whatever die off from the additions.

 

[BORNTOFLY]

I am going to have to add a word of caution to what tangerine
said. You may or may not have a good enough system to handle additional rock after your tank has cycled. This really depends on your BIO load in the tank and the filtration in addition to the Live Rock you already have present. If you overload your tank with fish and corals and then try adding more live rock you are going to have a crash. If you have more hardy fish then a small spike in ammonia, nitrites and nitrates is not going to be a big deal

I like to play it safe so if it was me I would cure the rock in a Rubbermaid container with a powerhead and a skimmer.

Just my two cents so take it for what its worth

Rick

 

[flameangel88]

Unless you can find some cheap at your lfs otherwise in the long haul it will cost you a lot more to add piece by piece. If it was me, I would get a box of 45lbs now then add another box or two later on when the budget is not so tight and do in in the manner Borntofly suggested above.

 

[trippyl]

you can reduce the initial bio hit of adding LR after the fact by curing it for a month or longer before hand in a rubbermaid or similar container.

I did this when adding another 45lbs of live rock to my 2 year old 75 gallon (which already had about 80lbs in it at the time). I let the rock cure for a few weeks in a 26 gallon rubbermaid with 2 powerheads running. I did the swish and swirl to dislodge whatever I could
and gave them a good scrubbing when they were close to being ready. The 75 had a decent bioload of about 6 fish and many corals and experienced no issue with the new rock.

I would also suggest that if you can get aqua cultured rock, it will cure much faster as it's time out of the water is much much less.