curing live rock

drewdog82

Member
I was getting close to purchasing some pre-cured and un-cured rock. I have read that u still need to cure it when you get it home. During the curing process, it says that u are supposed to dip it in water with a salinity of 1.040, so that the unwanted pests will fall off. I was wondering if the things that I want will also fall off??? Is there a way to get the pests off and still keep the wanted critters??? Also will scrubbing the rock with a toothbrush harm anything on the rock????
 

reefnut

Active Member
Well... if you kill the bad things all the good things will also die... then you are left with expensive base rock.
IMHO I'd do 80% base rock and then 10% premium live rock. Do carefully go over the live rock (even QT it for a while) so no unwanted critters get in. The live rock will turn the base rock live in time.
Or do like I did... fill it all with live rock and take your chances... BUT I love all the little critters... even some of the bad ones!!
 

clown52

Member
I went with all LR. I have 60lbs in my display that are about 3 years old. I recently got another 40lbs that is in my QT curing right now.
 

drewdog82

Member
Originally Posted by Clown52
I went with all LR. I have 60lbs in my display that are about 3 years old. I recently got another 40lbs that is in my QT curing right now.


Did u dip your rock in high salinity water to get some of the bad critters off???
Also, r you constantly scrubbing the rock with a brush of some sort----does it harm the rock???
 

drewdog82

Member
I was hoping to find some people who have cured LR and possibly dipped in higher salinity water who still ended up having neat critters and lots of corraline after putting the cured product into the display tank???
 

sly

Active Member
I'm getting ready to add some more LR in my tank. The last time I put in LR, I just put it in and took my chances. If there happens to be anything bad, there's always joe's juice... I just find that by trying to kill unknown bad things in the rock, you really end up killing more good things instead. Death is indiscriminate and so I just take my chances. Of course I run ozone and UV and so that may be why I've not had any disease problems also...
 

moby

Member
I was getting close to purchasing some pre-cured and un-cured rock. I have read that u still need to cure it when you get it home.
Is this a new tank? Or are you adding this rock to one already established?
If the tank is new, the uncured(and cured for that matter) can be used to cycle the tank.
Any organisms subjected to the cycling process could die off. The initial ammonia spike is lethal to most critters good or bad. But amazingly alot of stuff lives.
The best advice I can give is clean the rock manually (scrub it) remove anything soft and squishy, usually sponges die off anyway so you might as well remove them now.
Don't be afraid to really scrub it well. It won't hurt it. Rinse it well with prepared salt water and put it in. Keep in mind this method increases the chance of unwanted hitchhikers! It only takes one mantis shrimp to raise h*ll in your tank and they as well as any critters can be hard to catch with all that live rock in your aquarium.
If this tank is established do not add uncured rock, the spike will harm or kill inhabitants. Cured rock can be added but do it slowly over time to allow your system to adjust.
There are MANY threads on this subject, do a search and you'll find more info than you could want.
Moby
 
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