To Cure or not to cure?

[crabbydan]

I have a 20 gallon office tank with about 15 pounds of dry rock. I have a 5lb piece I want to take out clean and decide what to do with it later. In the meantime I have nuked cleaned whatever you want to call it to another 5lb piece. Nuked/cleaned = 45 minute acid bath, 1 day bleach soak, 1 week of sitting in a bucket with saltwater a heater and a power head. The reason for the switch is because I have shaped this new rock perfect for the space it is going to replace. Here is my question;

Can I just swap 5lbs for 5lbs out of 15lbs total or do I need to cure/cycle the new piece before it gets swapped?

What are your thoughts?

A million threads are out there on how to cure/clean/nuke/bake whatever, but i see no advice on just adding a new piece or swapping out about 25 to 33% of rock on an established tank.

By the way the tank has about 5 different patches of zoas, some pulsing zenias, long fin goby and candy pistol shrimp along with a few snails and 2 hermits a scarlet and a blue leg.

 

[crabbydan]

Some shots of the new rock with a built in tunnel for the pistol shrimp also keeps rock from tipping over also has many plug holes ready for frags

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[billdogg]

I'd just toss it in the tank and be done with it. It will become live soon enough

 

[crabbydan]

ok tomorrow I will do the swap. Hope any mini cycle is as small and short lived as possible.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[billdogg]

It's a piece of clean, dry, rock. I wouldn't expect so much as a hiccup from your tank. It will quickly become colonized with denitrifying bacteria and become a welcome part of your biological filtration.

 

[MurphyLong]

Everyone here is misinforming you. Don't use that piece. Immediately wrap it in plastic, pack in environmentally safe foam, and ship it to me!

Seriously though, just toss it in, it shouldn't have any ill-effects...

More seriously, send me that rock.

 

[thegrun]

I’ll take the other side of the argument, removing 1/3 of your live rock does present a risk that there will not be enough bacteria left to handle all your fish waste. The safest method would be to fist cycle the new rock.

 

[Troublekitty]

Personally I would cure it before you put it in your tank. I put a piece of uncured dry rock in my tank and immediately after ended up with dinoflagellates. I can't say that was the cause but it's the only thing I had added in a while so it's the prime suspect. It took me two months to beat it and basically wiped my coral.

 

[drysea]

I am a little unclear about where the 5 pound piece that you want to add came from. Was it live before the acid bath? IF you are certain you have dead stuff ie no decay on the rock you could probably toss it in. If there is any chance that you could have dead bristle worms and such in the pores of the rock cycle it first.

 

[monkeysee1]

I'd just toss it in the tank and be done with it. It will become live soon enough

^ +1
Absolutely right.
Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get some PROBIDIO BIOCLEAN if you want to speed up the process a little bit and to get some nice coraline growing on it.

 

[jubei2006]

Id cure it first. If its not completely rinsed of residual chemical (bleach, acid) it could really screw your tank chemistry. If all the organics haven't been removed, you could go through a new ammonia cycle which could be bad for live stock. I'd take the 5lb piece that's being removed anyway and cycle it with the new place in a separate container to speed things along

 

[ssgss gogeta]

If your taking rock out to put the new "dry" rock in than you will see a difference. It has no ability to aid in the nitrogen cycle. So your loosing some of beneficial and filtering process that the live rock your removing is doing until the rock your replacing it with becomes live.

If your simply adding new "dry" rock than no I'll effect should happen. Key word should.


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[crawlerman]

If you already have it siting in a bucket of saltwater, just test that water for ammonia. If no ammonia then you should be fine to toss it in.

 

[crabbydan]

I threw it in. Since I have other rock in the tank I wasn't too worried about a mini cycle. The new rock is getting some diatoms but the rfest of the tank looks fine. Also the only inhabitants (Candy Cane pistol shrimp and a 3/4 inch long high fin goby) sem fine. Will add a picture shortly.

 

[crabbydan]

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[crabbydan]

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[billdogg]

Nice! That looks really good in there.

 

[crabbydan]

Everyone here is misinforming you. Don't use that piece. Immediately wrap it in plastic, pack in environmentally safe foam, and ship it to me!

Seriously though, just toss it in, it shouldn't have any ill-effects...

More seriously, send me that rock.

First thought was oh no... then moments later I laughed out loud.