Should happen quickly cause of the bacteria on uncured rock. It will happen in as soon as afew days, but will stay spiked for a long time,usually much longer then using cured rock.
so after a week, i still don't see any ammonia or nitrite but i am getting nitrates, is it possible the live rock i got already had a good growth of bacteria on it already or should i try to add a raw shrimp and see if i get an ammonia spike?
I added 80lbs of LR to my 72 gallon tank 2 days ago and im yet to see any amonia spikes. Only thing I noticed was my salt content was a little bit above normal but that went away the follwoing day and was back to normal. Oh and that my live rock had 2 snails and a worm, how the survived the trip on the rocks for a few hours until the rocks got placed in my tank is beside me.