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Old 12/31/2007, 08:21 AM
Jocephus Jocephus is offline
Delaware Reef Club
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Dover, DE
Posts: 530
Generally speaking, people cure their rock in a seperate container when the tank is already established (adding new rock to existing tank). If your are starting out, place the rock in the tank to cure. Just don't add anything living until it stabilizes. Secondly, any rock you get will likely have some organic matter contained in/on it. Just because marco rocks are dry doesn't mean they won't give you the same cycle. That said, if you use dry rock, make sure to add some live rock to it to seed the rest. It will take quite a while for the marco rock to seed and function as if it were live. So you end up with a somewhat reduced filtering capacity for the first year or so. Personally, I think it is a great idea, as long as you are patient enough that you won't push a heavy bioload into the tank before it is ready.

PS.. Cooking usually involves trying to eliminate something bad from the rock, for instance cyano, or hair algae (done with no light). Curing is the natural process of the nitrifying bacteria reproducing in sufficient numbers to deal with the die off due to shipping of the rock.