How do i "cure" Dry Fiji rock?

[animalparamedic]

I have read your article on curing live rock... i find it very helpful, however - i have pieces of DRY rock that i want to cure - they are Fiji rock... I received them from a friend and they were already dry... I have had them about a year and now have time to "cure" them... What i want to know is if the process is the same, or if i need to somehow "cycle" this rock?

[cmor1701d]

What you now have is BASE rock not live rock. Base rock does not need to be cured.

MOST IMPORANTLY you need to find out if any copper based or other medications were used in the tank that this rock comes from. If you can't be certain you probably shouldn't use the rock. At the most you could have FOWLR tank but no inverts (shrimp, snails, crabs).

Also, where and how was this rock stored?

If you do end up using this rock you will need to buy a couple of pieces of LR to seed your tank.

Good luck.

[animalparamedic]

The rock was stored open to the air in a bucket for the last year.... no meds from the original location... do i still need to go through the "curing" process?

[melosu58]

If the rock is dry I would wash it off pretty good and then you can cure it by doing the same thing in the article or put it in your tank and cure. By curing we are talking about being covered with beneficial bacteria. If you want some Live critters than you`ll need to cure with some LR that has not dried out.

[ccCapt]

If this was once live rock that is dried out now, you will need to cure it. There will be lots of dead organics inside the rock. Don't put this in an established tank before it's cured unless your not worried about a new cycle starting.
Dried Fiji live rock is what http://www.marcorocks.com sells. I just helped my nephew set up a reef tank and we cycled his tank with only dried Fiji live rock from Marco. We even found a dried up serpent star inside the rock.