Curing Live Rock

MPaulley

Reefing newb
Alright i'm about to begin curing base rock, I have a 20G tank and I am going to put a protein skimmer on the tank for the process. (this tank is only for the rock curing) my main tank is 75G where everything will go when it is done. My question is can the water get to hot for the rocks? I live in Fla and I have read about the smell so I would like to do this in the yard or in the garage, and of course being summertime the water could reach 100 - 120 F i'm sure. Should this be a concern? Is there anyways to cure it in the other tank in the house without the wife tossing me out :D? Thanks in advance for any replies
 
Yes the rock needs to stay at a consistent temp. It shouldn't smell to terribly bad to cure it in you main system, you can put a glass top on it as well. Put some turbo calcium or carbon inside your skimmer cup and that will help with the smell.
 
Cure it in the display,as long as theres no animals in there.
Either way,your wifes gonna get ya over the smell :D
 
yeah the display is empty right now not even water cause i want to do the rock first and use it with live sand to cycle the tank. Now the smell comes from die off correct? so if I am using base rock and seeding it with live rock will it still smell bad since their really is nothing to die off?
 
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Is this base rock dry? If it is,then theres no need to cure it.You'll just have to rinse the dust off of it.
 
Is this base rock dry? If it is,then theres no need to cure it.You'll just have to rinse the dust off of it.

yes it is dry from my freshwater system i broke down over a month ago, I have also cleaned the rock throughly. I had coral in my FW system just for looks, I plan to buy more baserock since i only have about 65 lbs at the moment, but I have read not to do it all at once. The end goal is to have around 100lbs of rock how much of this should be live rock to seed the base rock?
 
As long as you've cleaned that base rock,just put it in your display (assuming you never treated your fresh water with copper).No need to cure that.
Then you have 2 options.
#1 Get about 40lbs live rock thats already been cured from your LFS.Then you dont have to worry about curing.Just drop in a raw table shrimp,let it rot for a day or 2,pull it out and let the cycle finish.IF it cycles at all.
#2 Order 40 to 45lbs of live rock online,when it comes in,place in the display,and ride the cycle out.
Its usually cheaper to order rock online,but you count on a lot of dies off and usually a long cycle.
But either way will work fine.
 
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