Curing Rock.....Nitrates.

[fittdog8848]

Hello,

I was tryign t osearch for the threads but needed to ask a question about curing live rock.

I have it in a bin with SW and heater and two pumps. I am doing daily water changes of 3 gallons and I am wondering if this water is going to go through the same cycle process..

I tested the water and noticedthat the Nitrates and Nitrites are off the hook!!!!!!!!!

If I continue with the water changes will this level out so I can then place the rocks in my established tank? I do not weant to put any rocks in there that came from Nitrate and Nitrite laiden water.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[fittdog8848]

^

 

[Avi]

Do you have any living things in the reef already?

 

[OnTheReef]

I presume you mean off the charts? If you have an established tank, you are correct in waiting for things to calm down, because adding more (uncured) live rock can set up a situation where all the rock starts to cycle again! Since you have a separate curing area for your rock, you can do extremely aggressive water changes a couple of times to export a bunch of the nitrates. The nitrate production will calm down over a few weeks. Also, add a heater to your live rock curing bucket (if you have not done already) to keep more of the critters alive. Also, you might want to put a heater guard on the heater so you don't melt a hole in the live rock bucket. :-0