Tub cycling dry rock (1 Viewer)

[Davy Jones]

Interested in thoughts, opinions and experiences cycling dry rock in a tub prior to the tank build as ive never tried it before.

Sorry in advance for the long read and thanks for the help!

Long story short my build is delayed atleast another 2 months due to a chipped tank. SCAquariums is sending a replacement but since it is custom it wont ship until June 25th at the earliest. Id like to get the ball rolling as much as i can here between now and then, and with the added benefit of an exact size tank to use for plumbing and aquascaping i can finish everything between now and then.

Question one, I am using dry sand for this build and i have already rinsed it out some, do i need to cycle that in the tub as well or should i only do the rock?

As for cycling the rock in a tub here is my thought: I have roughly 9-10 weeks before the new tank will be here.

Fill with RODI
Put rock in
Add flow for a week
Drain RODI
End of Week 1

Fill with saltwater
Heat and add flow for 1 week
50% water change
Heat and add flow for 1 Week
50% water change
End of Week 3

Add bottled bacteria (dr tims, bio spira etc)
Feed ghost feed some pellets every 3 days or so for 3 weeks
Add copepods from algaebarn and dose some phyto
Do 50% water change after the end of week 3 (or if nitrates and phosphates are 30ppm+ or .12+)
End of week 6

Add seed live rock from other members tank and seeded media
Verify 0 ammonia
Add 2-3 royal Gramma OR talbots damsel trio to tub with rock, continue feeding fish and provide ambient lighting (these fish are fish that will be introduced into the display, and are not being used only for cycling purposes)
Maintain feeding and testing with 50% waterchanges as needed or after the end of the 3 weeks
End of week 9

HOPEFULLY receive undamaged display, Hire moving company to bring downstairs (the first one was hard enough, i dont want to move a second display down there.) setup, plumb, leak test, fill 3/4 full with saltwater and heat.
End of week 10

Transfer rock and fish from tub to display, add additional bottled bacteria (if needed).
Transfer frag rack with some test corals and a single RBTA from my current tank to new display
Seed ATS and bring online
feed and monitor for 1-2 weeks
End of week 12

Transfer fish and coral from current tank to display

 

[DarkSky]

I'm tub curing some rock right now in a 100g rubbermaid tub. I started by placing all of the rock in the tub with 10 gallons of bleach for week. This last Saturday I drained the tub and now I'm letting it air dry to make sure most of the bleach is gone. Tonight or tomorrow I'm going to fill it with water, mix up salt, place a heater or two in it and start some powerheads, along with a bottle of bacteria. I'll most likely do a full water change next week and then watch the levels. Change as needed.

 

[jlanger]

I also did the bleach bath; see BRS video on cleaning dry rock (acid v. bleach).
I placed 80ish pounds of dry rock in a 44gal Brute container with two gallons of bleach for two weeks. I dumped the bleach bath water and refilled the container with RO water and overdosed a chlorine removing water conditioner. I've repeated that process (RO water with chlorine-remover) each week over the past month. The smell of the bleach is now non-detectable and now that the snow has finally stopped, I'll be sunbathing the rock for a while. Once I find out when my new tank arrives, I'll start curing the rock with bacteria and pods; I also planned on using an Algae Barn culture kit.

 

[Davy Jones]

Thanks both! I was gonna skip the bleach portion and just do the cure, however after letting it sit in RO water and heat with a powerhead overnight the tub SMELLS. So clearly there is organics in there that need to be taken care of. Ill let it soak a few days only because i dont have time to do the bleach method right now but come sunday Ill be filling the tub with tap water and bleach, around 28 gallons of water to 3 gallons of bleach. Ill place a couple powerheads for flow and let sit for a week then rinse and let dry.

Will start cycling it after that with seed rock, bottled bacteria, water changes and GFO.

 

[clownnut]

just soak in tap water for a week, do the best you can give all the rock a good bush down. if pukani, anything black can and will bush off.
saltwater, as many powerheads as you can, add bacteria right away, no reason to wait.
move all the powerheads once every couple of days, try to use the flow to push out as much crap as you can.
if you do water change, do 100%(if you can).
no point to seed the rock from other tanks, i dont see any benefits whatsoever, but the downside i can see a ton, unwanted algae, aiptasia, flatworm and others...
dont ghost feed until you have zero reading for no3 and po4.(if you have access to KNO3 and neophos, i like those combo vs ghost feed.)
i wont bother with sand until you have the tank setup.
you will go through brown algae(diatom) unless you carbon dose, all the new surface on your tank and sand will grow bacteria, that will create byproduct silica which will lead to some algae grow, just make sure have enough clean up crew or at least be active about clean those algae off the glass with a siphon. if you dont might the looks, you can just let it be too. i got to used to clean tanks, because the carbon dosing i cant stand the brown looks.

 

[Davy Jones]

just soak in tap water for a week, do the best you can give all the rock a good bush down. if pukani, anything black can and will bush off.
saltwater, as many powerheads as you can, add bacteria right away, no reason to wait.
move all the powerheads once every couple of days, try to use the flow to push out as much crap as you can.
if you do water change, do 100%(if you can).
no point to seed the rock from other tanks, i dont see any benefits whatsoever, but the downside i can see a ton, unwanted algae, aiptasia, flatworm and others...
dont ghost feed until you have zero reading for no3 and po4.(if you have access to KNO3 and neophos, i like those combo vs ghost feed.)
i wont bother with sand until you have the tank setup.
you will go through brown algae(diatom) unless you carbon dose, all the new surface on your tank and sand will grow bacteria, that will create byproduct silica which will lead to some algae grow, just make sure have enough clean up crew or at least be active about clean those algae off the glass with a siphon. if you dont might the looks, you can just let it be too. i got to used to clean tanks, because the carbon dosing i cant stand the brown looks.

usually this is what I do, however I wont have a display for this rock to go into until early july since I have to wait for a replacement from SCAquariums. I figure I have plenty of time between now and then to get the rock fully cured and cycled so when i finally get the tank, I place it on the stand, fill with water and the cycle is already done. If that is the case I can easily shut down my current tank and move everything over within a week or 2 of the arrival of the new one which would be nice.

Thanks for the input!

 

[clownnut]

usually this is what I do, however I wont have a display for this rock to go into until early july since I have to wait for a replacement from SCAquariums. I figure I have plenty of time between now and then to get the rock fully cured and cycled so when i finally get the tank, I place it on the stand, fill with water and the cycle is already done. If that is the case I can easily shut down my current tank and move everything over within a week or 2 of the arrival of the new one which would be nice.

Thanks for the input!

you cant speed up the bacteria that will grow on all the new surface of your tank/sump/sand. no matter how well cured the rock is, that's always going to be the case.
you dont have a problem adding fish and corals once you have the tank up and running with cured rock, but you still going to have the algae bloom. how big/small the bloom depends on each tank. no one can predict that.

 

[Davy Jones]

you cant speed up the bacteria that will grow on all the new surface of your tank/sump/sand. no matter how well cured the rock is, that's always going to be the case.
you dont have a problem adding fish and corals once you have the tank up and running with cured rock, but you still going to have the algae bloom. how big/small the bloom depends on each tank. no one can predict that.

I agree 100% on the bloom with the ugly phase. No escaping it. Im just hoping the rock has enough bacteria to support ~4-6 small fish in a 126 gallon tank as soon as the salinity and temp is where it needs to be

 

[clownnut]

you wont have any problem with that, just feed light for couple of weeks.

 

[Fishfoo]

Some great info here. I have some old live rock that I just started to cycle in a bucket (Less than 10 lbs) as well, and was curious how others cured theirs.

 

[Flounder]

Interested in thoughts, opinions and experiences cycling dry rock in a tub prior to the tank build as ive never tried it before.

Sorry in advance for the long read and thanks for the help!

Long story short my build is delayed atleast another 2 months due to a chipped tank. SCAquariums is sending a replacement but since it is custom it wont ship until June 25th at the earliest. Id like to get the ball rolling as much as i can here between now and then, and with the added benefit of an exact size tank to use for plumbing and aquascaping i can finish everything between now and then.

Question one, I am using dry sand for this build and i have already rinsed it out some, do i need to cycle that in the tub as well or should i only do the rock?

As for cycling the rock in a tub here is my thought: I have roughly 9-10 weeks before the new tank will be here.

Fill with RODI
Put rock in
Add flow for a week
Drain RODI
End of Week 1

Fill with saltwater
Heat and add flow for 1 week
50% water change
Heat and add flow for 1 Week
50% water change
End of Week 3

Add bottled bacteria (dr tims, bio spira etc)
Feed ghost feed some pellets every 3 days or so for 3 weeks
Add copepods from algaebarn and dose some phyto
Do 50% water change after the end of week 3 (or if nitrates and phosphates are 30ppm+ or .12+)
End of week 6

Add seed live rock from other members tank and seeded media
Verify 0 ammonia
Add 2-3 royal Gramma OR talbots damsel trio to tub with rock, continue feeding fish and provide ambient lighting (these fish are fish that will be introduced into the display, and are not being used only for cycling purposes)
Maintain feeding and testing with 50% waterchanges as needed or after the end of the 3 weeks
End of week 9

HOPEFULLY receive undamaged display, Hire moving company to bring downstairs (the first one was hard enough, i dont want to move a second display down there.) setup, plumb, leak test, fill 3/4 full with saltwater and heat.
End of week 10

Transfer rock and fish from tub to display, add additional bottled bacteria (if needed).
Transfer frag rack with some test corals and a single RBTA from my current tank to new display
Seed ATS and bring online
feed and monitor for 1-2 weeks
End of week 12

Transfer fish and coral from current tank to display

This sounds like WAY too much work. This isn't how the guys on Tanked do it. They just drop in the fish and coral!
(Kidding. Sounds like you have a good plan)

 

[Davy Jones]

This sounds like WAY too much work. This isn't how the guys on Tanked do it. They just drop in the fish and coral!
(Kidding. Sounds like you have a good plan)

Youre right. Ill just use fake rock and coral and put $5000 worth of fish in just after filling with water lolol