Can breaking liverock cause another cycle?

[SaltyMist]

I'd like break a piece or two of existing liverock that I feel is just to big to be usefull in aquascaping my 12 gallon tank.

But if by breaking it with a hammer and chisel, will this cause a mini cycle, or cause a huge cycle or what?

I imagine the rock in question would have to be out of my tank for a good 3 or 4 minutes to get it busted up and put back in water.

Whats the best way of doing this?

Thanks,

 

[tazdevil]

I wouldn't think so. Unless there is some dead/decaying matter in it, which should've already been affecting your tank, it won't cause a problem. More than likely all you'll encounter is a lot of worms. Be very careful about how you break it, sometimes it'll just shatter into a million pieces instead of two nice one's.

 

[SaltyMist]

Thanks,
Yeah I went to my LFS to get a new tank since I managed to put a gauge about 3/4 of the way across my Eclipse 12, so I bought a 20H tank, and asked the owner if it would cause a problem and he said not likely.

So I took a hammer and chissel to the piece that I wanted to break. What a chore that was, but finally split it up into about 4 smaller pieces, and a bunch of fragments. Of course it was stupid to do since now I have a larger tank and didnt think about it at the time, but would welcome a larger piece now.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to find somewhere that sells liverock fully cured and doesnt mind packaging it in water so that it wont cycle my tank again.

I think there is a good LFS down in gardena that I'll go to and ask them if their LR is fully cycled or not, since they are relatively cheap for LR compared to my really LFS.

Thanks for the response, I didnt encounter any worms though, at least none that I saw, and it kind of looks really bad (the piece that I broke) because it didnt break all craggly, but rather sheared off to leave straight faces on the rock.

 

[tazdevil]

Just put the straight faces face down, or use to build a cave for future inhabitants.

 

[SaltyMist]

Yup thats what Im going to shoot for. Right now it cleared up really quick. But that could be because I run a 285gph canister filter with about 14oz of charcoal in it that was just changed yesterday.

Heres a photo of the new tank, obviously it needs a lot more liverock now (strange it's only 8 gallons bigger than the eclipse, and in the eclipse this much rock looked like too much).

Oh yeah, the pic came out blue when in reality the tank looks more just well.... Lighted, not yellow, not blue. Go figure.