Cycling live rock

[dbmaybee]

OK, here's my situation. I'm building a new house and will be setting up a new reef tank. I'm planning on moving in 3 months. I figure I can get a head start on cycling the LR. The new tank will have 100-150lbs of live rock. If I buy the LR now and plan to cure it over 3 months, do I need to provide lighting? If so, how much do you think I can get away with? How often should I perform water changes and how much water. Would it be easier to wait and only cycle the LR over 2-4 weeks?
Thanks for the replies.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

No reason you can't start cycling it now. It doesn't need light, just powerheads to keep the water moving and a heater to maintain a constant temp. I'd let it sit for a couple of weeks before doing a water change, then do a 20% change weekly. JMO though.

 

[ChrisRD]

Curing the rock in advance is worthwhile IMO. Whether you provide lighting or not depends on what your goals are. If you're trying to preserve all the photosynthetic life on the rock, lighting it would be a good idea. If you're only interested in pods, worms, bacteria, etc., it will be OK without light. Keep in mind that during curing nutrient levels are usually running high and coupled with intense lighting, that can lead to nuisance algae problems, so you might not want to get too carried away with the lighting. If you can keep nutrients low (strong skimming, water changes, etc.), this will be less of an issue.

As for water changes during curing, there's no real right answer. If you get really clean rock and have a good skimmer running you may not need to do any. OTOH, if you're having ammonia problems, you'll need to do large, frequent water changes to get things under control. Of course there'd be no harm (and probably some benefit) in doing water changes on a regular schedule if you're so inclined.

JMO & HTH

 

[Rob Top]

IMO the way you cure should be based on your end goal, pods and such, or the light loving stuff. I have cured in two ways, dark trash can, and in tank with lighting. The results are dramatically differant. At the end the rock with out light was loaded with tube worms and crawling with bugs. The light stuff was coated with coarlline alge and several corals made it through the process as well. Lighting the rock will cause more work in water changes, filtering and testing. Dark is pretty much throw it in a container and forget about it for a couple weeks, do a water change and forget it for a while longer (of course you want some filtration on it). Both times the rock came to me in bulk from distant lands not the LFS.

 

[dbmaybee]

Thanks very much for all the replies. I think I'm going to go the no light route and wait until I set up my main tank before the coralline grows. Also, I'm kind of fond of the pods.