Live Rock?

[bch044]

Hello all again,

Since my 125 is going to take quite abit of LR ($) can I buy it some at a time (alittle every week) and put it in a container like a Brute with circulating water until I get enough to put in my tank?

If so does it need any special light or can I just let it sit in the Brute with the water circulating?

Thanks
Steve

 

[bassist6108]

The answer depends on whether you are buying cured or uncured. Either way, you will want to ensure that your cycle is completely finished before adding fish, etc., to your tank. It is OK to buy a little at a time, it will just take longer to get past the cycling stage. Each time you add uncured LR you should expect a fluctuation in trites trates and ammonia.

There's also mixed opinion on the lights, but if you are just curing the rock most would agree that lighting isn't necessary. JM2C.

- Andrea

 

[SaltyDr]

You should probably try to get as much as you can at once. One alternative is to get some LR and some dead base rock (a good source is marcorocks.com) This base rock will in a matter of months become live rock. You will save a bunch of money this way. You can add rock as you go along, just make sure it is well cured, or you could crash your tank. If you keep it in a garbage can without light it will eventually kill off all of the photosynthetic organisms (this can be a good thing when "cooking" live rock, but a bad thing if you are trying to save as much good life as possible. A week or so without light shouldn't be a problem. You can always add a clip on light with a screw in fluorescent bulb on to the garbage can as you are curing. Hope this helps.

 

[bch044]

Thanks,

I think I am being misunderstood with this one.

My tank is not setup yet.

What I am wanting to do is buy LR alittle at a time and store it in a Brute can with a powerhead in it to circulate the water until I have enough to finally add it all to my tank at one time when I get ready to set it up.

Also do I need to feed this rock while it is waiting to be put in my tank?

 

[SaltyDr]

If you have the tank why not add it to that when it is cured? Without decent lighting, all photosynthetic organisms will die.

 

[bch044]

Thats all I have so far is the tank and stand and am in the process of obtaining plumbing, pumps etc. and everything is getting pricey(which I knew getting into this) and some of us dont' have a couple grand to lay down at one time for everything so we do it in stages.

 

[1F2FRFBF]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9515209#post9515209 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bch044
Thanks,

I think I am being misunderstood with this one.

My tank is not setup yet.

What I am wanting to do is buy LR alittle at a time and store it in a Brute can with a powerhead in it to circulate the water until I have enough to finally add it all to my tank at one time when I get ready to set it up.

Also do I need to feed this rock while it is waiting to be put in my tank?

I'm not sure about the "feeding" part - do you mean some sort of supplements, or are you talking about throwing some food in there?

As far as cycling your rock a bit at a time... hmm. Being a newbie myself, I'm not sure how much weight you should give to my opinion, but I'll throw it in anyway and someone can (and will, LOL!) correct me if I'm wrong.

Let's say you start with 30 lbs of rock and throw it in the can to cycle. A few weeks go by, and by this time that first 30 lbs is probably just about going to be done cycling, which means your ammonia and nitrates and nitrites will be dropped off, and you're going to have the beneficial stuff starting to thrive.

Then you get another 30 lbs of uncured rock and add it to the almost-cycled rock, and the cycle starts all over again. Now the question becomes whether the new additions will cancel out all the previous effort, because then you'd be introducing a new batch of ammonia etc. to the mix. I imagine some stuff might die off, but then again the new growth might help the cycle along a bit.

Hmm... I'm curious about this now too! Anyone?

 

[ken6217]

Light is a debate as said above, but people have done it both ways with success. You should also look at using a protein skimmer though.
Ken

 

[bch044]

^