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cycling with base rock

MontanaBay

MontanaBay

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Hi All,

So I'm close to setting up my 40gal, but I will be leaving town for two weeks at the end of the month. Would it be smart the add dry base sand and rock and maybe a few pieces of live rock and live sand and let the tank cycle while I'm gone? Then change out the water when I get back and add the cured live rock and sand and run out the final cycle? Or should I just wait, so I can do constant water changes through the whole process?

Thanks,

Josh
 
Well if you put in dry rock every nook and cranny of that surface area will get covered with bacteria, it's a matter of how much dry rock you add, you potentially could have a whole other new cycle.

Personally I'd add in all there rock & sand, and then go on vacation.
 
so by all the rock do you mean the high quality live rock too or just the cured and dry? I'm wondering if pay extra for some really good crusty live rock will the cycle kill it and it would be essentially reduced to cured rock?
 
Well I'm really skeptical about how "high quality" cured rock really is. You toss in your HQ rock you might very well get migration to your dry stuff and get some "HQ" not-so-dry-anymore live rock. But again it depends how much rock you really have. If you have rock that's already cured w/ sand and that stuff you might not get much of any cycle at all. It really depends, where you get the "HQ" rock and what it's been doing from now until the moment you put it in your tank.
 
I'm thinking about 60lbs of LR total in the display, so I was going to do 40lbs of dry, 20lbs of dark cured, then add 10lbs of well established rock from my other tank.
 
Well if you're worried about your "well established rock" getting that initial diatom coat that all new tanks get, then leave it out. However I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but maybe that's just me :)
 
I would toss they dry rocks and dark cured in together. Add the one from your tank after you come back from vacation. I use frozen shrimp to cycle the tank.

Here is my tank.. 99.9% of the rocks are dry rocks.
June192008.jpg
 
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