Cooking Dry Rock for tank upgrade

[derek_SR]

I have been cooking up some dry rock for my tank upgrade for a few weeks now. I'm using a 40gal brute can with a heater and some gentle flow. I've seeded it with rocks from @dandemeyere , @CaptainB , and @under_water_ninja. Thrown in some pods and a little phyto and raw ammonia to get things going, along with a few drops of random bottled bacteria I had (mb7, polyplab stuff from kenny, some KZ thing).

Any other suggestions or anything I'm missing? The goal is to just make the tank transfer with as much bio diversity as possible. I'll be including most of the rock from my current tank as well.

 

[Turkeysammich]

Just time. Sounds like you’ve covered it. If you really wanted to. You could do a water change but not required.

 

[RandyC]

I have been cooking up some dry rock for my tank upgrade for a few weeks now. I'm using a 40gal brute can with a heater and some gentle flow. I've seeded it with rocks from @dandemeyere , @CaptainB , and @under_water_ninja. Thrown in some pods and a little phyto and raw ammonia to get things going, along with a few drops of random bottled bacteria I had (mb7, polyplab stuff from kenny, some KZ thing).

Any other suggestions or anything I'm missing? The goal is to just make the tank transfer with as much bio diversity as possible. I'll be including most of the rock from my current tank as well.

Ammonia might not have been a good choice for the pods. In this case, feeding the phyto or something like reef chili or reef roids would be good for the pods. Heat isn’t necessary for bacteria or pods, though higher temperatures will allow them to reproduce quicker.

 

[richiev]

As @RandyC said, only thing off there is possibly the ammonia add. Also be careful with the phyto, since it tends to have a ton of phosphate in it. If you dump a ton in during your cook, and presumably never change the water, you're effectively infusing your rock with phosphate that it'll later release.

Ask me how I know this...

Looks good overall though. Bonus points if you turn off the flow and see if you can see any pods moving around.