Can someone point me to an article on curing?
Here's what I don't get... Mass vs. surface area. My LFS wants to sell big heavy hunks of rock. If they had their way I’d buy 3 - 40 lb rocks. Seems to me that if I find 20 pieces that are spindly, lots of branches and porous with FAR more surface area, why can’t I buy 75 lbs. 125 pounds of rock consumes a LOT of space, especially if it IS porous and branchy. (Just making up new words as I go) It’s taking away from the display. So if I have a Fluval G6 with several pounds of those little ceramic nodules, and a 10 gallon sump with one end full with fully 10 pounds of those nodules, isn’t that hosting enough bacteria?
20 years ago when I was into this and running fish only, it was all about the sump and the bio balls. Changed 20% of the water monthly and live was good. Rinsed the detritus off the balls in salt water every few months… I think we added bio wheel when they first came out but I really thought the bio balls were doing a good job. One could make a case that test kits are more accurate, but I never saw any stress on my fish.