Newbie ? about live rock

[brandt]

When setting up a new tank does it matter if you get uncured or cured live rock? Can you put either right into your new system? Or do you have
to soak in a different container. Sorry for the dumb questions. Doing research for setting up my 75 gallon tank. Alot of great info on this site.
Thanks for the help.

 

[ChrisRD]

Hi Brandt and welcome to Reefs.Org.

If you're going to mail order the rock, it will need to go through a curing period in your tank either way. Even cured rock will experience additional die-off after it is shipped to you. The in-tank curing period of a previously cured rock will be substantially less than an uncured rock though.

If you buy the rock locally, cured rock should have little to no die-off. There will be some minimal amount just from restacking the rock, etc. but shouldn't be enough to see any spikes in the nitrogen cycle IME.

Buying uncured rock is cheaper and allows you the possibility of getting more goodies on the rock. It's also much more effort on your part to cure and you have more chance of getting undesirable stuff as well.

If you do a search (check for this function at the top of the page) you'll find a lot of discussion on the pros/cons of cured vs. uncured rock on this site.

HTH

 

[brandt]

I read in the beginners section that live sand can prevent the cycle from happening. So this should be added after the live rock has cured and the tank has cycled. I plan on using aragonite sand on bottom then layer of live sand.

 

[Anonymous]

live sand will definitely not prevent the cycle from happening....that's BS!!

 

[Len]

brandt,

Do you have a link to where you read LS will prevent cycling? It may be a misunderstanding (or perhaps texts that need updating). Live sand won't prevent cycling. However, it's not advisable to add live sand before the cycle because the critters in the live sand will have to endure the tough conditions during the cycle which will invariably kill off a good portion of the sand-dwelling organisms. In my opinion, it's best to seed the sandbed with live sand after the cycle has completed.

Hope that helps.

 

[brandt]

Read it here: http://www.reefs.org/library/newbieguide.htm

G. Sandbed and Live Rock

Dr. Ron Shimek proposed a while back that deep sand beds had numerous properties which will increase the health of our captive reef systems. The increase in critter diversity is one of its strongest attributes. The other is that when deep enough with a fine enough grain size, micro-aerophilic zones (very very low oxygen, nearing anaerobic) are attained. In these zones, bacteria convert nitrate to gaseous nitrogen, which then is free to leave our tanks. The same process occurs on the inside of the rock we use in our tanks as well, once colonized by the proper bacteria (the so called 'cycling' of a tank is solely to allow these bacteria to colonize and shift numbers).

The sand grain that seems to be the best is oolitic grade. Aragonite is best, although silica sand also works. A mix in grain sizes appears to be a true benefit to the critters that live in the sand as well. "Live sand" as sold, is basically just sand that has bacterial and critter life already in it, and so prevents any cycling from occurring.

Thanks for all the help, I'm sure I will have alot more questions in the future, as I prepare my 75 gallon tank.

 

[Len]

Ah. Thanks. That needs to be reworded. Wade, the writer of the guide, is a microbiologist by profession and has a little different grasp of the concept. He does not mean to suggest that live sand is destructive of the nitrogen cycle, but it "short-circuits" the process of cycling (which according to the technical definition, is the progression of different bacterial populations each suited for different processes within a complete nitrogen cycle).

I hope that wasn't more confusing