Curing live rock

[AquaSquid]

I am setting up my 75 gal and have started to add live rock. Found some great Fiji rock for 2.99/lb. The rock is nice and light and porous great shapes and sizes. The rock is uncured. I put it into the tank around 4 days ago along with live sand. The rock came nicely packaged and wrapped in wet toweling so it was well protected and moist. After 4 days the tank is giving off a strange odor and the rocks themselves are starting to give off little bubbles. The sand is starting to develop a very fine brown color and my ammonia and nitrate levels are rising. Is this all normal? In my 12 gal I used all cured live rock. I am not sure if there was something special I should have done with this uncured rock. I have another 45 lbs coming and I would like to know if there is something I should do to the rock before it goes into the tank. Also Is there something I should do to the rock already Added? Thanks.

[ReefNeck]

This is perfectly normal with uncured rock.

I hope you have no animals in the tank yet because uncured rock should never be put in a tank with animals. Uncured means that the things that died off in the rock during shipping from the ocean to the supplier and then to you are rotting. Uncured rock can be used to "Cycle" a tank because the rotting, dying organisms create ammonia which begins your cycle. It can take 4-6 weeks to cure the rock just like a "Cycle". You can take the rocks out one at a time and scrub them with a toothbrush to get any dead material off that is on the surface to help speed things up and cut down on the stink if you want.

When your ammonia and Nitrite levels bottom out at "0" your cycle is complete.

[jerryc]

No you or fine to me that is the best way to set up a new tank.....
your uncured rock will give you the cycle you need to get your
bacteria growing.
You will have about 6 weeks before you can add fish or whit ever
just get some test kits and watch your Ammonia-Nitrite and nitrate
ones all is in line you will be Reade to go.

The only other thing is when the other rock comes in just rinse it good before you but it in

[dakar]

Just a side note, as the cycle progresses in your tank, after the ammonia begins to fall off, any additional uncured LR should be cured in a separate container before adding it to your tank.

[jerryc]

Just a side note, as the cycle progresses in your tank, after the ammonia begins to fall off, any additional uncured LR should be cured in a separate container before adding it to your tank.

Good one forgot to add that to my post

[AquaSquid]

will scrubbing they new uncured rock, reduce or remove the potential non-bacterial life on the rock? Also, lights or no lights during the curing process? I was using mostly actinic with a reduced photo period 4-5 hours.

[jerryc]

Lights for a short pride wont hart anything

[dakar]

Lighting at this point will not bring about any benefits to anything but increased algae growth in your tank (nutrient levels will be very high during the cycle), unless there is some animal life on the rock that needs it provided it may survive the nitrogen cycle.

Scrubbing the rock now out of the tank will help remove some decaying matter that will otherwise just settle to the tank bottom as it falls of the rock tobe cleaned up later. Skimming at this point on the other hand is highly reccommended.

[AquaSquid]

I'm assuming that I wait for the cycle to be completed before I add any cleaning crew to deal with algae bloom? Also would now be a good time to set up my middle refugium compartment and get some chaeto going or just wait for the completion of cycle & curing?

[dakar]

The refguim can be fired up at any time, holding off on any particularly sensitive inverts (shrimp, starfish... for example) until after the cycle has run it's course, you can safely add some snails and hermits for the cleaning crew after the ammo spike drops off.