placing dry rock directly into established tank?

[Deep Seven]

Good reef rock is porous, which allows lots of bacteria to grow. Good dry rock often comes from mining ancient reefs. This allows you to use reef rock, without damaging a living reef, and it's usually much cheaper then live rock. I thought one of the big dry rock mines was in texas but I could be wrong. I know there's a place in florida that takes mined dry rock and hangs it in the ocean for 10 years and then sells it as "reef friendly" live rock.

 

[mwilliams]

I just called my LFS and they said those Lava Rocks come from South America don't know if that helps any or not.

 

[Jereli]

I wouldn't be able help you with that. I know nothing regarding lava rock.

Anothr question for you guys.. so I just tested the water that my dry base rock has been soaking in for couple days in now..at the start my waters ph was around 7.8 and 0 for ammonia. After soakog the rocks for two days my waters ph appears to be around 7.4 and ammonia looks like 0.25. What should will this be ok?

It was 50lbs of rock soacking in only 15 gallons. These results shouldn't affect 60 gallon tank with 20 gallon sump would it?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

It will be proportional. If the tank's filtration system is well cycled and there is already LR in the system, I would think it would be ok, 80 gallons vs 15 would roughly be 6x the amount of water, so 6x less ammonia or 0.04 maybe 0.06. Filtration should be able to take care of that. I would change the water and run a powerhead for another day and test again just to be safe, but that's me.

 

[cmor1701d]

Lava is very dense rock without the crevices that coral rock has. Lava rock MAY contain heavy metals, but you can't tell without testing.

The reason for using any rock in our reef tanks is for the amount of surface area available for the beneficial bacteria to cling to. Like the grains of sand from sugar sized sand,, there is a lot of surface area in coral rock. Lava rock just doesn't have this. You may as well use slate.

Dry base rock is mined from area that used to be coral reefs. Texas holy rock, Florida base rock, and rock from all the pacific islands are former reefs that are now above the surface. It is the porosity of the rock that makes it suitable for biological filtration.

Jereli, did you have a powerhead in there to keep the water circulating?
Have you added a source of ammonia to feed the bacteria, or start the cycle?

If you are seeing ammonia I would not add the rock to a tank with livestock. If it's starting to see ammonia after a few days it has organic material that is now decaying and creating that ammonia. Get some more tubs and cure it outside of the tank before adding it to be safe.

 

[mwilliams]

cmor,
so you can use the Texas Holy Rock as the base rock then? It is from Austin Texas?
mwilliams

 

[cmor1701d]

Lots of people have used it. I have no experience with it.

 

[Jereli]

Yea I was assuming that it wouldn't make a big difference in much more water. I will retest again after couple more days.

Cmor..no I did not have a power head running..I didn't add any source of ammonia because I didn't think I had to since it was dry base rock in the container only. I didn't add any live rock to the container.

 

[cmor1701d]

It does make a difference. You don't want stagnant water. You need water circulating in and around the rock. Once you add circulation you may see a much larger spike in ammonia.

 

[Jereli]

Ok so I just added a power head we'll see how that goes...

 

[tdob141]

Despite the fact that I don't have any live stock... well except for a hitch hiker hermit crab, some pods, bristle worms, and two snails... I might have to grab the 20 gallon tank from my basement to soak the rock since it looks like you're getting at least some ammonia. I only bought 25 lbs but I'd rather not have to wait an additional 2+ weeks (to allow for a mini cycle) from the time I put the new rock in till when I can get some "real" live stock... the tank has been set up since August with twice a week feeding of fish flakes for the hitch hikers / beneficial bacteria.

Thanks for keeping us informed on how this rock "matures".