How long till live rock can be added?

[tprize]

So here is my situation I have 15 pounds of live rock sitting in my current tank, I have about 40 pounds of dry live rock sitting in a bucket of saltwater with high flow for about a week and a half now.

I am building a new tank and plan on using about 15 pounds of the new rock and about 15 pounds of the old rock with about 1/3 of the sand being old and 2/3 of the sand being new.

I am going to transfer my livestock to the new tank when the change begins, but of course I do not want to do them any harm. How long should I keep the rock in the curing bucket before it's ok to transfer everything to the new tank?

 

[username in use]

I would put a piece of live rock in your curing bucket, and let them all cycle in there for a while, and then you should be able to add them to your tank fairly quickly once they are matured and you aren't reading any ammonia or nitrites. Treat it like its own DT and cycle it like you would normally. Maybe put some food in the curing bucket as well or a piece of table shrimp.

As far as the sand, if you are going with mostly new sand, you only really need a cupful of the old to seed it and you won't risk bringing a lot of funky stuff over with it.

 

[tprize]

Ahh forgot the shrimp! I knew I forgot something, I will also add the live rock tonight.