Curing live rock

J

jccaclimber

Premium Member
I currently have an established and overfilled (coral, not fish) 29 gallon biocube. I am in the process of building a 5' 175 and am collecting rock. What I have so far is dry and coated with whatever was in it in the last tank it was in. I may end up letting it cure in the new system to cycle it, but I am also considering curing it in advance with a months long salt water soak. I don't change much if any water in my tank, so using water change water isn't an option. Since I'm just trying to de-gunk it do I even need to use salt water, or can I use RO waste? If I do need salt water, what salinity is needed? Finally, has anyone done an acid bath, and was it worth it vs. one of the already mentioned methods?
 
You will want to ensure your rock is as clean as possible, to avoid introducing phosphate and nitrate factories from anything the rocks contain. If you use this rock and it is not properly cleaned/cured/seeded, you will end of up with algae issues, and potentially other issues where you have no obvious culprit to point at. IMO you should do the acid bath, follow that process to a T, and then place the rock in a barrel, and start curing it. You can then seed it with some live rock from your system, and hopefully this rock will be ready when your tank is.
 
The safest thing is to do an acid bath. It is not as hard as it seems, then I would start curing them in saltwater after you neutralize and clean the rock. Don't use the waste RODI, the phosphates and other stuff that comes out of your waste RO will absorb in your rocks and cause problems down the road.
 
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