time to cycle in new baserock

[wes]

well, a little bit back I added some cinderblocks to my fowlr and I'm curious about how long it'll be before they have a decent culture built up. Cycling is just one damsel, been in there a couple months with maybe 20lbs of other LR. I've got some biozyme that came with some other things I have and I added that a couple times (searched it on TRT and it seems like grigor advises this method for base rock, do you still?) I'm going to keep this a fowlr tank and add a dwarf lion and then maybe one of the thalassoma wrasses or who knows. I plan on maybe adding some more damsels before the lion; then swap them into my other tank that's laying fallow for a few more weeks for ich reasons...

Anyway, does this seem like a sound plan? Anyone care to weigh in on base rock time spans or cinderblock or biozyme?

[David Grigor]

I like the biozyme ( becuase cheap and long shelf life ) as a saftey net when making major changes to your filtration on a pre existing setup.

I've never considered using cinderblocks in a tank but I think the main concern is not bacteria related but PH related much like with adding concrete.

When adding some base rock to a mature setup, It can be seeded in just a couple of weeks with coraline dots already starting to show. Can't say how long in a new system. Haven't had a new system since the first one back in 1996 always just seeded from my existing tanks.

[wes]

I read a bit on TRT and it looked like people were recommending it as long as it didn't have mortar. I've been watching the pH and it's been steady. I'll watch for a while longer, of course, but they were a quick, cheap and easy way to aquascape such a damn tall tank... grr. Plus, their mondo porus and that seems like a good quality for base rock. Anyway, it's a fowlr and kinda a "rough" lookin' tank, I'll post some pics once I get around to havin' anything else interesting in it.

[John_Salmon]

I have some base rock that has been in my tank for three months now and it just has algae popping up on it. I would say that it takes 6+ months for it to look good.

[David Grigor]

how fast coraline starts to grow is very dependant on your water quality parameters ( high alk/ca/ph and low phosphates ). In a mature healthy system 3 months is on the long side before starting to see coraline IME. Sounds like improvements can be made to encourage.

[John_Salmon]

how fast coraline starts to grow is very dependant on your water quality parameters ( high alk/ca/ph and low phosphates ). In a mature healthy system 3 months is on the long side before starting to see coraline IME. Sounds like improvements can be made to encourage.

Yes, my tank was freshly started when i put the base rock in. On my previous system I found that after about six months you start to see the "fully encrused" look that is what you are going for.

[wes]

good to know. parameters seem to be dead on in check and pretty stable, so hopefully it'll get goin' quickly. Thanks guys