Cured or Uncured?

[RHINO13]

Hi guys my next dumb question is. What are the benefits of starting a tank with cured lr as oppossed to uncured lr? Is it even possible to cycle a tank with cured lr? The reason i ask is, my lfs told me more than once that they dont sell uncured, and that i could purchase their cured lr and add fish the next day. Now ive been doing alot of reading and i just dont think this sounds right. i should be getting my heater today and still trying to decide if i should dump my tap/saltwter and start over with distilled or ro/di h2o. I just ordered a TDS meter and plan on taking tests of my tap to see how bad it is, and probally base my decision on that. Any coment are welcome,thanks again all

[EJS4]

I would not dump your water. Even if the water was zero tds the salt would have raised your tds. As you add water and do pwc use ro/di water.
Cured lr means they put it in their tanks and let the die off cycle. No you should not add fish the next day. There will be some die off which will need to cycle.

[roka64]

You can possibly skip the cycle if enough cured LR is added to the tank (I won't even try to guess on the ratio). I really wouldn't suggest this as a way to cycle unless you understand how the cycle works and test the water to make sure there are no spikes. People do use this method to quickly cycle a QT, if it is needed ASAP.
Live rock really means it has the nitrifying bacteria on/in it.
If you are looking to save money on rock, mix base with some LR. I'm doing 150Lbs of base from marcorocks.com and about 50-75Lbs of cured LR in my 125G.
I have seen you post a few times about dumping the tap water, if you feel more comfortable with that go ahead, it will give you some decent practice in PWCs and premixing your water.
Do you already have sand in the tank, or just SW?

[RHINO13]

Thanks EJS4

Even if the water was zero tds the salt would have raised your tds.

I plan on testing the water straight out the faucet not the water in my aquarium

Hello roka thanks for the post

Do you already have sand in the tank, or just SW?

Yes i already added the sand(60 lbs. CaribSea Arag-Alive)

I have seen you post a few times about dumping the tap water, if you feel more comfortable with that go ahead, it will give you some decent practice in PWCs and premixing your water.

I truely do not want to dump the water and waste a bag of salt but i have posted the question about using tap water(after i had already used it) on other forums with some people saying that i should not and that i will kill any inverts and so on...
I definitly do not want to hurt any of my future critters

[EJS4]

I use tap water, not a problem. The minerals in your tap water may make pH control more of a problem. That's the only problem I've experienced with using tap water.

[melosu58]

Rhino dont worry about dumping this batch. Just let it go and most likely you`ll be OK after the cycle you can do a 50% PWC with RO/DI water. Tap water is not a good idea for future PWC`s or top offs IMO for a reef tank.