Live Rock Question

[bertoni]

If you just want bacteria, there's no need for any live rock to seed what you have. Otherwise, it's a guessing game, and depends on how many animals you'd like the tank to have, and the quality of the live rock you can buy.

 

[lilredwuck]

Just a little confused here.....Do I clean the rock off, or just throw it in the tank? Basically it is dry dead live rock. So it's base rock now, right? There would be saltwater, and some rock? So does the bacteria magically appear?(lol)Or do I need something in the tank, like something "living"? I am not understanding the concept I guess, but been sitting in front of the computer for 10 hours holding my........with nothing to do.

 

[dudley moray]

yes the bacteria do "magically appear" in a sense when there is a food source "ammonia"
the bacteria will appear and breed thus seeding your dead rock which i assume has some amount even minute of detritus on/in it to start the nitrification cycle!

 

[Aquarist007]

I am not understanding the concept I guess, .

Your previous rock still bacteria existing in the deepest and smallest pores of it.
The process goes like this
The dead matter on the rock falls off into the water producing ammonia, nitrates phosphates and a whole lot of other organics.
This is called Curing
The bacteria come alive in the rock and work on the ammonia--to do this they must cycle their numbers to match the bioload or ammount of ammonia that comes off the dead rock. This is called CYCLING

As the rock cures the amount of biomatter eventually decreases, the bacteria are able to catch up with it and reduce it to nitrates.
Then a second strain of anerobic bacteria called anoxic bacteria step up to the plate and work on reducing the nitrates

One method of cycling your tank is to monitor this process by measuring the ammonia and the nitrates. You should see an ammonia spike then a decrease to zero and then a nitrate spike and a decrease to zero.
At this point you know your bacteria has cycled in numbers enough to be able to start to add creatures to your tank
This process can take anywhere between 3-5 weeks depending on how much dead matter was on the rock originally.
Reefers adivise you still to go slowly after the orginal cycling of bacteria as their numbers drop off so they are in equilibirum with the biomass they are handling
Curing of live rock happens once(hopefully) in your display tank however cycling of bacteria is a life long process. Everytime you increase the biomass in your tank you must allow time for the bacteria to cycle their numbers to take care of it

 

[lilredwuck]

I think I will just bleach scrub rinse and soak. I stuck it in a bleach bath, as it was covered in Aiptasia, bristle worms, who knows what else, and it stunk. LOL, oh well, it was a small amount, and I didn't give much for it, once done I'll just use it for base rock, and stack some live I get on top.