LR: Uncured cycle vs Cured

[AdeptMrSniffles]

Hey all,

I'm getting pretty close to starting my tank up, as in tomorrow if I get the answers I hope I get, and was wondering if I should just get cured rock or try cycling my tank with uncured LR. I've read on multiple sites that uncured is the way to go, so that I can get all the beneficial bacteria. Plus, the uncured rock at my LFS's is much cheaper than cured. My question is: What all does it really take to cure the rock? Just time? From what I understand all I'd have to do is place the rock in my tank, turn my powerheads, skimmer and heater on and then wait for the Ammonia and nitrates to spike then fall to 0. Normally taking 1-8 weeks. Then perform a water change and check my readings again before carefully, and slowly, adding my Livestock. Is that all there is to it? I just don't wanna pickup 35lbs of the rock tom. to find that it isn't easy and takes more than I suspected. Also, I don't have my light yet so would that interfere with the process? Thanks guys.

 

[yote]

The next time I start a tank with all new rock.It will be cured.Much less cycle time,if it cycles at all.No stinch of death.
Uncured rock stinks.The smell is right up there with a dead anemone.When I ordered rock online,my wife was ready to kill me 2 days into the cycle starting.It was January and about 12 degress at night,and we had every window in the house open with fans in them.It was bad.
Cured rock is ready to go.With enough of it,the cycle should be extremely short.I've set up tanks at the LFS that cycled in a day,if they cycled at all.
If you can afford it,spring for the cured rock.Your nose will thank you later:D

 

[AdeptMrSniffles]

The next time I start a tank with all new rock.It will be cured.Much less cycle time,if it cycles at all.No stinch of death.
Uncured rock stinks.The smell is right up there with a dead anemone.When I ordered rock online,my wife was ready to kill me 2 days into the cycle starting.It was January and about 12 degress at night,and we had every window in the house open with fans in them.It was bad.
Cured rock is ready to go.With enough of it,the cycle should be extremely short.I've set up tanks at the LFS that cycled in a day,if they cycled at all.
If you can afford it,spring for the cured rock.Your nose will thank you later:D

LOL!! Thanks Yote! Reading that def. sways my head and my wallet to spring for cured rock. My g/f would kill me if it smelled our apartment up. I guess I was overlooking the fact that everything is dying in your tank with uncured. WHOOPS!

 

[RyanG]

If you like the smell of ammonia<cat pee> you'll like the smell of curing rock.

 

[Bifferwine]

You know, I'm one of the people that has used uncured live rock over and over again, and never had to deal with a bad smell. I would recommend using uncured to save money, but it really is up to you.

In the end, the only difference is price (definitely), length of time to cycle (definitely) and smell (maybe), you you'll have to decide which if those, if any, is important.

Other than that, what you said is correct, except the cycle goes ammonia rises and falls, nitrites rises and falls, nitrate rises, and once ammonia and nitrites are at zero, your cycle is over and you should do water changes to bring nitrates down.

 

[Smitty]

Hey Mrsniffles, you could also purchase a lot of dry/base rock and then a few pieces of cured/live rock to seed the rest of the base rock...you will have a small cycle, and still come out cheaper than buying all live rock. Just a thought:D

 

[RyanG]

I dont know Smitty, I have heard of people having just as raunchy of a smell from base rock as uncured rock. I guess it all depends on the source.

 

[sen5241b]

If LR stinks its cause something on there died recently. I've cured many pounds of rock (dead coral skeletons) that sat bone dry for months and it never smelled bad.

Some noobs pay a lot for LR, bring it home and then let it sit out of the water for too long. If LR dries out the money spent is wasted.

 

[AdeptMrSniffles]

One local LFS has Fiji LR for $5/lb and another has PREMIUM Fiji LR for $7/lb and also a few pieces of Tonga Branch, their last pieces since they've stopped harvesting it. So I'm gonna buy about 10lbs of the $5 Fiji then pickup another 10lbs of the "premium" Fiji. The Tonga branch doesn't have any branches, it looks like they broke off somewhere so it wouldn't be worth it to buy it to me. If theres no difference between the Fiji and "Premium" Fiji then I'll just pickup all of it for $5/lb. And I have no intentions to let it set out of my tank AT ALL, lol. I'd never do that. Especially if I just dropped $120. My girlfriend thinks I should just get about 10lbs of LR, for a 29G long, and just get a canister filter. Since it would only be about another $40+ for that compared to 20lbs of LR

 

[yote]

To my way of thinking,the differene between the Fiji and premium Fiji is about 2 bucks a pound.Just got which one you like the best.

 

[AdeptMrSniffles]

To my way of thinking,the differene between the Fiji and premium Fiji is about 2 bucks a pound.Just got which one you like the best.

Ya, I'm gonna go look at the $5/lb LR tom. to see if there's some kind of significant difference. If not, then I'll be stocking my tank with the cheap stuff. Although I'm normally the type of guy who believes "You get what you pay for." I sure hope it doesn't turn out that way in this case!!

 

[yote]

Rocks rock.Some is more porous,some is more dense.Some has more hitch hikers while others are basically just rock and bacteria.
Get the rock you like the best according to size,shape,and color.Also try to get pieces that more porous.I personally try to get the pieces that have the most visiable hitch hikers.But thats just me.
As long as you get rock that you like,then your getting what you paid for,IMO.