Question about my curing live rock

[Kissfan79]

Hey guys...
I have a question about the live rock I have "curing" on my porch. This rock came out of my folks tank and I dried it out for a few days to kill everything on it being as it was in bad shape. I scrubbed each peice and it is all now in a 38 gallon rubbermaid container on my porch covered in water. I have a Maxijet powerhead cycling the water and there is a protien skimmer on it as well. I have tested the water several times and have done 1 water change so far. The rock has been in this process for about 3 weeks now. When testing the water...I get readings of ammonia and nitrite that are through the roof . These are colors I have never seen before :eek1: . On the nitrates however....I am getting readings of 0. I have been expecting to get high ammonia followed by high nitrites and then finally high nitrates with them all slowly tapering off. I have had these high ammonia/nitrite and 0 nitrate readings for a couple of weeks now. Does this sound normal? Could it just be taking an abnormally long time to cycle through or so I need to add something to jump start it? I have cycled rock before and it has never taken this long to get a reading change before. Any thoughts or help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jim

 

[tufacody]

Jim: It is essential to have a certain amount of LIVE LR in the curing tub to complete the process. If you killed all the bacteria off the rock, you no longer have LIVE ROCK. It is the bacteria that complete the nitrogen cycle, and without it you haven't been curing at all.

 

[nalbar]

What tufa said.

What you did was kill everything. EVERYTHING.

And now what you are left with is rotting dead stuff. Hence the ammonia and no nitrates.



nalbar

 

[Kissfan79]

So...basically you are saying I need to add some actual live rock to the dead rock I have in my rubbermaid to finish the process....correct? Is there anything else I can add to it besides the live rock? I have seen some additives that are supposed to start/speed up the cycling pocess. Thanks for the reply.

Jim

 

[nalbar]

Those additives are a rip off.

You could add some live rock, but be aware you might kill THAT rock if the rot is really bad. You need to clean up what you have as much as possible.

In a way you are past the point where the rock is worth any amount of effort. Once it was allowed to dry completely (I assume for days) there is nothing 'there'.

You have two main choices;

Get a power head and blow the rock off as much as possible and put it new salt water. Then do the same a couple days later, constantly putting it in new salt water. After the rot seems gone, put in some real live rock to seed the old dead rock.

Take the dead rock out of the bucket, wash it off REALLY well with a hose and allow it to dry COMPLETELY, in the sun, for weeks. You will then have dead base rock.

Either way you can't leave it in a constant ammonia and phosphate bath.


nalbar

 

[Kissfan79]

The rock itself is actually clean at this point. There is nothing left on the rock itself to continue rotting. Before I put in the water it is in now I scrubbed each piece really well to get off any schmeg. Right now the rock is basically white and doesn't doesn't have that nasty rank smell when you have that rotting die off. I think at this point I'll pull the rock out, clean it again really well and put it in another rubbermaid with some fresh saltwater and try to re-seed it.

Jim