Uncured rock

[francisco5]

Hello everyone. I have a few questions about uncured live rock. I started a new tank up last Tuesday, today I put 12 pounds of uncured live rock in it. I got it from a lfs and had them not to put it in any of there tanks and they didn't. I got to see them open the box and to my surprise the rock was not packed with any water, is this normal? If so did the hitchhikers survive the trip without water, and also will hitchhikers survive the cycle? How long should it be before I can add the rock to my display tank? Thanks

 

[nereef]

if its a new tank, you can add the rock now. as far as i know, all rock is shipped this way. you will have some die off but this is okay as it will cycle your new tank.

 

[francisco5]

It is in my new tank now. How long before i add it to my display tank?

 

[27mtaylor]

Keep an eye on the water parameters and when they get back down to 0, you can add it to you display tank.

 

[francisco5]

How many weeks do you think it will take? Can you guess at something like that?

 

[coderad]

Usually 2-8 weeks mine took 6 weeks

 

[27mtaylor]

I cured some live rock that I got from a website a little over a month ago. It took exactly two weeks for it to cure. I think most of the time you can expect it to take 1 - 3 weeks, depending on the amount of die off.

 

[27mtaylor]

Oh, one other thing, did you scrub off the dead stuff when you got it? You may loose a few things, but it will help speed up the curing process.

 

[francisco5]

Na, I've read some post suggesting to do this, but i didn't want to kill anything that might have been alive.

 

[francisco5]

I'm not in a big hurry I was just curious about how long it might take.

 

[francisco5]

Just broke out the flashlight, can already see I am going to need some peppermint skrimp.

 

[francisco5]

^