Dry Rock

aquadonkey

aquadonkey

New member
Hi friends :)
I just got some dry rock rubble from Marco Rocks. It's for my 5g build.
I have a couple questions about it....

1) I want to put a lot of the smaller pieces into my 29g for the pistol shrimp. Can I just rinse it and put a little in at a time?

2) Do I just use epoxy to glue the pieces together to form my structures? I'm not wanting to go as in depth as drilling the rocks and putting bars through - and indeed, it's going to be such a small tank (5g) that the structures will be fairly light.

3) When I start cycling the 5g, here are the steps I'm planning on taking - am I leaving anything out?
- glue rocks together with epoxy while dry
- rinse well (tap water okay for this?)
- put rocks in 5g then fill with salt water
- put sand and a small rock from my 29g into the 5g
- wait.......
 
I just finished the stack on my 120. I got the rock the way i wanted it, then built little pillars out of epoxy to stabilize the rock. The epoxy will not stick two rocks together, but it does a great job stabilizing!

img3349small.jpg

img3350small.jpg

img3351small.jpg
 
I heard there is a chemical that accelerate cycling the tank, Can't remember what it is. I have let my new tank cycle for almost 3 weeks, then again I had 70% fully cured rock. I added a little food to help things and a fish for a week.
 
Stack looks great Blurry :)
Those close up pics give me a good idea about how to start going about putting mine together.
As far as time goes, I'm not impatient about getting this thing cycled. I waited 4 months with my 29g (overkill perhaps :) ). This little 5g is going upstairs, so I want to wait for fall to be around the corner before I start adding livestock (easier heat control then).
I have a couple corals in the 29g that need to be rescued from the constant bulldozing of the pistol shrimp, but they can make it through the summer I'm sure :) :)
 
The dry rock may still have nitrogeneous wastes and or phosphate. You can cure it for at least a couple of weeks or give it a bath in bleach and then and acid bath. I've used it straight out of the box after a rinse and had algae problems with it for months.
 
Good to know Tom - thanks.
Now, did you start with the same rock? It says on the Marco website that they do the acid bath already before they send the rock. And by curing it, do you mean just letting sit in SW in a tub in the basement?
Also - the tiny pieces for the pistol shrimp will be most likely buried in the sand. Should I cure it first as well just to be safe?
Thanks for the help here - still feel like a complete noob sometimes :)
 
I upgraded to a 135 from a 40 breeder. I bought about 100 pounds of dry rock and moved over about 40 pounds of fully cured from the 40. I had a huge algae explosion after only a couple of days. I scrubbed the rock down filtered out the algae with a filter sock and have not had a problem since. I didn't put any fish through this.
 
I used the brs rock. Maybe the macro is cleaner but I personally wouldn't trust it.
Yes I mean cure it just like you would live rock and test for PO4 and NO3 along the way. The acid bath should remove the surface and most phosphate stuck to the rock along with it. Do they say what kind of acid they use?Organics could still be there since acid won't remove them as bleach will .
When any organics that are present dissolve they could be harmful if buried in potential anoxic areas as they could fuel SO4(sufate) reduction with toxic hydrogen sulfide gas as a byprocuct.
 
When I moved my setup a year ago to it's new location I used 100lbs of the Marco Rocks dry rock. I only used two pieces of live rock totalling maybe 15lbs. It went through the typical brown diatom and short green fuzzy algae phases. Typical cyano phase as well. Still no hair algae ever seen in this tank and it's a little over a year old now. All I did to the dry Marco rocks was take it out in the driveway and pressure washed it with the garden hose. The cycle definately took a little longer than normal but with how long you're planning to let yours cycle, you should have no issues at all. :)
 
I have used Marco rocks a couple times. In both cases I fought nuisance algea for a few months after the tanks were setup. IMO cycling the rock for a few weeks before adding it to the tank is going to be your best bet.
 
Perfect Mel - thanks for that info. I thought I remembered seeing that info somewhere, just forgot that it was actually on the Marco website.
One last question - how about temp while curing? If I just do it in a tub in the basement, will I need to use a heater as well?
 
It will go slower if it's cool( higher temp = higher metabolic rates) but it will still work.
 
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