Curing dried out live rock

[FSU Reefer]

Hey guys, Im sure this has already been discussed but the search option has not been working for me. I decided to get back into the hobby after a 6 year hiatus. Im in the process of curing my once live rock. I have about 70 pounds sitting in a garbage can with a heater at 80 degrees and three power heads to get it flowing in there. I have been curing the rock for about 3 weeks now and just did a water test to see how thing are going. As expected, ammonia, ph, & nitrates are through the roof. I have a few questions for you all:

1. do you do water changes throughout the curing process?

2. i added the rock to 1.025 water but as time passed, salt off the dead live rock has risen the salinity to the point where it caps out the meter... should i add water to keep it at 1.025? or is the extra salinity ok during a cure?

3. should i add some live rock to the cure? or to the cycle? to seed the dead rock.

Thanks guys.... im excited to get back into this hobby

 

[hijinks]

1) yes you want to change out the water for fresh water to test mainly the phostphates to be sure all the organics are gone.

2) I'd do a full water change.. You want the normal salinity.

3) I wouldn't it might introduce pests

Your first goal is to dissolved all the dead organics on the rock. You don't want them in your tank or you will have major algae issues. Once your posphates are reading 0 for a few days and your others are at 0's then you can think about adding them to the tank.

 

[mcgyvr]

1)yes
2)are you adding fresh (no salt) water to make up for what's evaporating? If not that's your problem...you should be the salt does not evap but the water does
3)no need really as bacteria is already there but won't hurt..it can help speed it up

 

[JUNBUG361]

What they both said

 

[FSU Reefer]

Thanks for the responses. I did a 100% water change. Water was yellow and full of dead matter. So wait a week and test the water again? if theres no ammonia i'm ready to start cycling?

 

[crawlerman]

Test for phosphates too, if you dont get the trapped phosphates out of the rock you will have algae issues. If your water was full of dead matter, you most likely have trapped phosphates.

 

[STLirishmen]

So to add to this, I’m doing the same thing. I haven’t seen anyone talk about using a protein skimmer, so my question is does this process not need one?

 

[mcgyvr]

So to add to this, I'm doing the same thing. I haven't seen anyone talk about using a protein skimmer, so my question is does this process not need one?

You can use a protein skimmer at the same time if you want..
Typically people do sufficient water changes when curing so that can help negate the real need for a skimmer..
But it certainly will not hurt to run a skimmer in a curing tank..