Curing Live Rock

[barngeatbayman]

Its has been a long time since I setup a new tank and don't recall how quickly or slowly some things happen. I have a 90 gal RR with 125lbs of Tonga Nuku Fusion Rock that was sold to me as uncured. Well it turns out it must have been partially cured because, I never had an Ammonia spike. It has been 10 days since I added the rock on 8/29. My water parameters are as such as of this AM

Ammonia 0
Nitrite .10 ppm
Nitrate 40 ppm
S/G 1.025
Temp 79.6 F
Calicum 390 ppm

So far I have had the rocks curing under 4hrs/day of T5 Blue Actinic lighting.

My question is this I have not seen any brown diatoms or green algae as of yet. I kind of remember seeing this stuff earlier in other tanks I have done. Also I haven't seen any creatures ie worms, coepods, hitchhikers etc. yet is this normal? I have even tried viewing at night and still nothing!! What do you think?

[audio101]

Put your normal lighting on it now, I've never heard of someone cycling with just blue actinic lights. A 125 pounds of uncured rocks should produce ton of life and die off. Do you have any photo's of the rock? Sounds like it was cured rock..

[Ben485]

i'd like to hear the answer to this as well. i am having the same thing happen to me. no algae or hitchhikers!!?????

[audio101]

I'm curing live rock with my old base rock in a 10g aga. Its been around 2 weeks so far and I'm now just started to see the diatom bloom start to recede (along with some hair algae) and I've also have had a nice amount of life pop up from the uncured rock. Usually you'll find at least some type of macro algae from uncured rock.

[Lotus99]

My uncured rock didn't start showing any algae until very near the end of the cycle, and continuing after the cycle for a few weeks.

I also didn't see much life until the rock had been in the tank for about 4 or 6 weeks. Then, I started seeing pods, tubeworms, sponges, etc., but maybe only one thing a week.

[loosecannon]

Time ,give it time.

[wooden_reefer]

Originally posted by barngeatbayman
Well it turns out it must have been partially cured because, I never had an Ammonia spike.

I believe you should really think about what partially cured is.

If cured means cycled, partially cured can mean

1. Right after ammonification (decay) you bought the LR. Little nitrification bacteria and also little stuffs on the LR to decay.

or

2. About two weeks after ammonification you bought the LR; there was a good population of nitrosonomas (the nitrification bacteria that turn ammonia into nitrite) but not yet a good population of nitrobacter.

It is quite logical to conclude that if you are not seeing ammonia, then you should add a source of ammonia or perhaps nitrite. Since you don't have nitrite to add, you might as well as more ammonia to give you nitrite.

The answer to 1 or 2 is to add ammonia. Otherwise, waiting won't help you cycle.

[barngeatbayman]

no I had as much as 4ppm of nitrites

[wooden_reefer]

Originally posted by barngeatbayman
no I had as much as 4ppm of nitrites

You have nitrite means you don't have much nitrobactor and that generally you have some nitrosonomas. 4ppm nitrite is not high as a peak, so the population of nitrosonomas may not be high. For a reef tank this may be enough though.

You may be OK just by waiting for the nitrite to drop.

For myself, I'd always add ammonia source at least once as insurance.

[barngeatbayman]

I thought about adding some uncooked cocktail shrimp at first but all of the dead sponges I figured would have done the job for me. Is it unusal not to see any diatoms at this point? Though, today I see some faint brown hair looking stuff on a piece of live rock though it is very sparse I dont remember seeing this the other day.

[bertoni]

I think you're worrying far too much. I've had two tanks that never showed much of anything in the way of a cycle, and never had any problems.

[barngeatbayman]

you are probably right Jon.

parameters tonight

ammonia 0
nitrite .05ppm
temp 79.9 F
s/g 1.026
nitrate 40ppm

[jimicasper]

I cure mine in the toilet.