How do you cycle an aquarium with dead rock?

[reefgeezer]

My current tank I started with dry sand and dry rock.
My process was to aquascape, add sand, add water, mix salt in tank, let return and PH's run to mix salt. Day 2 I added enough pure janitorial ammonia to bring it up to 2ppm, then just let it ride until the cycle starts.
One ammonia, and nitrites were 0 I did a 100% WC to clear the eventual high nitrates.

I did roughly the same thing. I used ammonium chloride and a 50% water change at the end. It worked well. The cycle was still 4-5 weeks.