Curing LR: yet more questions

[Rovert]

I'm about a week into curing 80# of Marshall in a 55 tank with skimmer running 24.7, Eheim canister for mechanical/carbon only, and need to ask for some pointers as I continue.

I did NOT clean any of the rock before placing it into the tank last week, and that was probably a mistake. Tested water today, ammonia was off the charts, so I siphoned some tank water into a bucket, removed each piece of rock and scrubbed it with a nail brush, set it aside, did a 100% water change, and replaced rock into the tank. Rock was out of the water for about 1 hour, but that's no worse than what any of it experiences coming from a reseller.

The tank and rock look much cleaner now, but I noticed a sulphrous odor while scrubbing the crud off the rock. Is this normal? Should I be doing anything else during this curing period?

TIA!



[Edited by Rovert on 05-23-2001 at 06:27 PM]

[Rovert]

^

[Q-ball]

Relax dude...light a stogie, drink some scotch, check for bugs, but leave the rock alone dude:D The stinkie stuff is part of curing good nasty rock, it goes away. I'd just let it go for a while, definately wouldn't scrub it as you may take off stuff that would otherwise survive. Run the skimmer, good circulation, & in a few weeks, VOILA, you've got cured rock. Good luck!;)

Q!!!

[mr9iron]

I second Q-balls advice. :p Let it alone and everything will be fine. Patience is truly a virtue.

[Tadashi]

I did the same thing do not worry. After I cleaned the rock I looked for the life and then aquascaped it. Once everything was study I added 4" of dead sand. This was seeded by the next day (tons of worm tracks). Then threw in 30 hermits and 7 snails. To prevent the ammonia from killing them I used AmmoLock2 and a concentrated bacteria formula to speed the cycle. They helped immensly in cleaning the rock and not a single one died. Once the rock was fully cured I added another 1" layer of LS for more diverse population.

The only stuff I scrubbed was anything that was black/grey and smelled like rotten eggs. Once the hermits went in the tank they took care of anything else.

[Rovert]

Thanks, guys.

Just a clarification, I got this rock at a steep discount direct from a wholesaler, because it was sitting for over a week in shipping boxes, and starting to 'go around the bend'. It's not every day that you get Marshall for $3/lb, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

The caulerpa and other algaes on it were dieing, so it didn't seem to make sense to me to leave rotting biomass that wasn't going to revive in the tank. That's why I got it out and scrubbed it.

So, my question is, given the change in tactic, where I had to scrub at a week into the curing, is there anything else, other than waiting it out, that I should do, or just let it sit?

[SteveP]

Just let it sit. There si a ton of biomass WITHIN the rock that scrubbing will not remove. Relax and be patient. Let your nitrogen cycle proceed. Your bacteria need all of it to colonize the tank anyway. The sulfur smell is normal too. One other thing, you're probablt going to notice a lot of brown, dirtlike powder dropping off the rock and piling up on your substrate. This is also normal. You can siphon it off or leave it for your sand critters.

Give it time. We're takling a matter of weeks here!

Steve
8{I

[Rovert]

Steve -

Thanks. I'm familiar w/ the Nitrogen cycle, and expect a diatom bloom shortly (some is already appearing on portions of the rock...), however, there's no substrate in the tank, in full expectation that I might have needed to do exactly what I did, and that could always add it later.

How long would you say it takes for uncured rock to cycle? If normal 'pre-cured' rock takes approx. 2 weeks, would you say 3, 4, or more?

[becka]

Going along these same lines... I am planning on ordering 100# or so soon and curing in the tank. No critters. What and when can I add to the tank to clean up the die off? I am planning on putting different types snails, a tiger tail or 2 and a starfish for the clean up crew. And a shrimp or 2 or 3.

[oldduffer]

Becka
Its gonna take bout three weeks for the cycle to get far enough along to add life forms to it. Just test your water occasionally and watch for the ammonia to drop to -0- them add slowly. I am curing 150 pounds of Marshall Island rock as we speak. I purchased this from Jeff's and it was'nt in very good condition, lots of dieoff. The thing about Marshall rock is it is full of big worms inside the rock and when these die off, there is a lot of nasty crap to deal with but you can siphon out and change a litte water here and there. A fast cycle would be three weeks, a slow one about five weeks. I might add that if you get a white covering on the rocks about a week into the cycle, you should siphon and blow as much of this off as you can. When it is all over, you will find that most everything that was colonized on the rock will grow back, it just kinda hibernates through the bad stuff.