Originally Posted by
Nystyle182
http:///forum/post/2969953
what happens it there is no power head while curing just saltwater and heated water? does it make a diffrence with fii rock? what exactly does curing do anyway?
Without a power head, there would be less circulation.
You want circulation because during the transfer of the rocks, some of the live things would have died and are decaying. As they decay, they will break down in the normal aquarium cycle of ammonia, nitrites, nitrates. Your ammonia will spike then go to zero, the same with nitrites. When both ammonia and nitrites are at zero, then your rock is cycled. (though you may need to change some water in order to get nitrates back down within appropriate parameters.)
What the cycling does twofold: first, as discussed above, it gets rid of the dead stuff and the effect of dead stuff on the water quality in your tank. The way it does this, (the 2nd thing) is to grow a culture of a couple types of beneficial bacteria. The excess ammonia feeds a growth of one type of bacteria which produces nitrite as a waste product. Then, another type of bacteria that eats nitrite grows and produces nitrates as a waste product. Once the colony of ammonia eating and nitrite eating bacteria are large enough to handle the "load", then the tank is cycled.
The power head helps move the water around to all areas of the rock and also helps oxygenate the water.