Live Rock curing - is this possible?

[Clown Monarch]

I recently recieved 50 lbs of Caribbean live rock over Ebay. It took about 4 days to ship and was sold as "uncured" but it actually looked very nice when I saw it.

I scrubbed the dead parts away and placed it in a 45 gallon aquarium with excellent flow (2 return pumps maybe 1300 gal/hr total). I also have a skimmer running but it hasn't pulled very much.

Here are the readings -

After 2 days about 1ppm Ammonia and 80ppm Nitrate

After 4 days about .25ppm Ammonia and 40ppm Nitrate


Could it really cure this fast? I was expecting at least 2-3 weeks.

 

[DragonForce]

I'm assuming so, my tank took 4 days to zero out.

 

[Clown Monarch]

Wow, that's quick.

Thanks.

 

[ellisz]

Was there a lot of dead stuff on the rock? If it smelled good and not a lot of stuff on the rock, it might be that fast. You will smell it if it gets bad

 

[fishfreek]

If you scrubbed the rock well its quite possible you removed most of the surface dead/dieing mater. Do a water change on the tub and monitor ammnia and nitrite levels for another few days then if its still 0.00 on both call it cured.

 

[skennelly]

It's absolutely possible. When I started my tank I purchased very good LR, I didn't assume it was cured, but I never had an ammonia spike or even traces of ammonia.

 

[melosu58]

I agree that the scrubbing helped expedite the process. This is a step that alot of people sidestep. Good luck

 

[Clown Monarch]

I scrubbed it pretty well, but I can see now I obviously missed a little here and there.

The rock did smell fairly bad when I first got it (of course I have no point of reference to exactly how bad "bad" is). The smell is almost entirely gone now, however.

 

[BillyZ]

I scrubbed it pretty well, but I can see now I obviously missed a little here and there.

The rock did smell fairly bad when I first got it (of course I have no point of reference to exactly how bad "bad" is). The smell is almost entirely gone now, however.

good rock smells like good dirt. really. The more your LR smells like fish or hot garbage, the more die-off has occured. The more is reminds you of working in the garden, the fresher and cleaner it is.