Curing dry rock

[SFish]

So I picked up some Pukani and I plan to do dry aquascaping. Should I cure the rock first before bonding it together? Also how do I go about it? Do I need to use salt water or can I just use RO/DI water? I don't have a tank up in running right now.

 

[thegrun]

To cycle the rock you must use saltwater, please read through the stickies at the top of this forum "setting up...how to". If you have a container big enough I think it is a good idea to bond it together first, but either way is fine.

 

[sfdan]

Cycling it or curing it to get rid of phosphate?

If you are trying to get rid of the phosphates, you should do that before bonding it together, because you might want to do acid/bleach baths first. There is a giant thread about this that I recently read which has many anecdotes and strategies for curing Pukani rock (to remove phosphates).

I'm currently curing 100 lbs of Pukani in RO/DI water in Brute trash cans, dosing SeaKlear twice a day. After the phosphates get to a lower level I'm going to do my Aquascaping and then do the cycling in the DT. This isn't the fastest method but it is fine for me.

 

[SFish]

This is something along the lines that I was thinking