Seeding Dry Rock

[ChrisDunson82]

So I have started the beginnings of my new found hobby. After a lot of debating and realizing that I will be living in an apartment until my house is finished building, I decided to seed base rock with live rock. I did a lot of researching but all of the threads explaining the seeding process stop at needing a heater, powerhead, saltwater, base rock and live rock and just wait. My setup up is just a rubbermaid bucket, heater, powerhead, 20lbs of dry rock and 10lbs of live rock. My question is does the water need to be at the same parameters as it would be to support livestock or does the salinity just need to be right? Do you still need to do water changes? Just putting everything in a bucket and just leaving it there for a while sounds way to easy for this hobby. If anyone could tell me if that is right or what I actually need to be doing or a link to a full walk through of how to do it would be greatly appreciate it.

 

[Bifferwine]

You should change out the water periodically just like you would a tank. 10% to 20% each week would be good. You want to keep your parameters in check, but it's not as important as if you had livestock in there.

 

[VAreef]

My process of seeding dry rock is just throw some live rock in the tank on top of the dry rock then proceed as normal. I let it grow in my DT. I added 25lbs of marco dry rock in my tank a month or so ago and its now starting to turn purple and green colors instead of that really bright white.

 

[Hiker4twenty]

+1 VA. That's the way I did it as well. It took about 3 weeks to start getting some color. Now after 2 months it looks almost like the rest of the LR in my tank.

 

[yote]

About 75% of the rock in my tank started as dry base rock.

 

[fastrd400]

You should be fine just following what Biff said up at the top.

 

[jamesbetts]

Change out the water periodically and add in some live rock to help equalize things and you should be good. Note - make sure that you properly prepare the water (check pH, salinity, conditioning) before you add it in!