Curing Rocks

[mhorgunn]

I am a complete newbie to salt water tanks and I've had some issues already with the local store. They are delvering my tank on Friday. That's the good news. They were suppose to be also bringining the water, live sand and cured fiji rock. Now they are saying that they are bringing rock that isn't cured. I've got a couple of books that give me directions of curing the rock in the primary tank as you start the cycle ... comments?

 

[lando]

Welcome to AquariumAdvice.com!!!
The addition of uncured LR in a brand new tank is not really a bad thing. When adding it to a new tank, it can help with the cycling process. However, I hope they did not charge you for the price of cured LR when they gave you uncured LR. We have some great info on "fishhless cycling" in the ARTICLES section on the top of the page.

 

[mhorgunn]

Well yeah they did. I paid for everything up front. But they are delivering and settling it up for free. But after reading about the process I'm not too thrilled with the prospect especially with the tank being next to my wife's seat at the dinner table.

Thanks for the welcome.

So in general what is the difference in price of live rock and cured live rock?

 

[lando]

$2 to$3 per pound is the difference where I live.

 

[roka64]

There are different types of rock, base (completely dead and dry, that is usually is white in color), uncured rock (that has been out of the water and doesn't have any beneficial bacteria or much life on it, but will become live) and live rock, that hosts the beneficial bacteria and is typically already in the LF'S display tanks.
Around my area, cured LR is about $8.99/LBs and I haven't found any base rock or uncured rock.

 

[cmor1701d]

Let me clarify Scott's description of 'uncured' LR. Uncured LR is freshly harvested LR that has been out of water for more than a day. It should still be wet and covered by damp newspaper, cloth, etc. There will still be life in and on it. Some this will have died and begun to decay. That what makes it ideal to start the cycle in a new tank.

The lfs usually gets this type of rock and cures it in the shop to be sold as cured LR. They may sell both cured and uncured LR.

Depending on how much die off there is the smell can get real bad for a few days (up a week or so).

 

[ccCapt]

I agree with cmor, except I'm not sure about that out of water 1 day thing. Live rock is shipped "out of water" but kept damp. It can be a few days in transit from when it leaves the collection point and arrives at the LFS. But, cured is rock the LFS had for a while and all that would have died off did. Uncured is fresh out of the box and has stuff dieing.

 

[ellisz]

I never noticed a bad smell when I cycled my first tank with about 50 lbs of uncured fiji rock. Cycle did last a few weeks though. It will depend on how much die off occurs.

 

[jollylager]

Why is the rock sick?

 

[cmor1701d]

Why is the rock sick?

When I was a kid I worked with my neighbor, a nursery man, stacking newly cut logs for seasoning before it was sold for firewood. His favorite line when someone asked if the wood was cured was "My wood's never been sick"