Refugium rubble?

[mike030987]

So I was about to place do e rock/rubble in my fuge but figured I'd get an opinion beforehand. I'm seeding my 72 bow with the live rock I'm placing in the sump. I have some very nice baseball/softball size pieces. I was thinking about breaking a few up to make some rubble for the bottom and then placing a few whole pieces above that. Now should I just use all rubble? All larger pieces or my first idea? Any thoughts as always would be great. Thanks.

 

[MrX]

I would just leave the nice pieces alone and put them in as is. The rock should already be porous enough, no need to break it up. If you really want rubble for frags or whatever you can always find someone selling it here and other places.

 

[mike030987]

I just wasn't sure if I should have more of a I guess bottom of rubble like covering the whole thing. I guess I'll just drop it in then. Now with this being the only live rock to seed almost 100 lbs of base in the display, how should I go about it for a cycle?

 

[MrX]

In my 100G stock tank sump I had a mix of large and small rocks, rubble, and sand. Started out as mostly large pieces dividing the stock tank about 60/40. In the 40% side I had chaeto and eventually about 2" of sand (left over from the DT).

As I collected extra rock and rubble most of it went into the sump.

I also had half a salt bucket full of rubble to mount frags on.

Like so much in this hobby the answer is "it depends"; mainly on how you want to do it.

 

[mike030987]

Yea, it's kind of what I have I try and use really. This rock was given to me by a breakdown from a friend. Perfect timing for my set up. My question now though is how do I cycle it when I add the 30 or so lbs of live rock. Will I even have a cycle since its fully cured? Do I need to introduce some ammonia or maybe a raw shrimp? Or will I just have small cycles as I add livestock?

 

[MrX]

Just throw the live rock in and let that kick off your cycle. You'll have some die-off but the rest will survive and begin seeding your rock and sand. I'd probably put a couple pieces (if you have enough) in the DT. A piece of deli shrimp might help speed things along, but I don't think it's really needed if you have a bunch of live rock going in.

If you have any other reefers nearby see if you can get a cup of sand from a couple different people; that will help also.

Run your power heads and heaters as you would normally. You could run your skimmer as well, but no real reason to without livestock.

Give it a few days to a week and check your AM/NI/NA parameters and go from there. If you see any of them moving you'll have an idea of what part of the cycle you're in. I'd give it at least a couple weeks to make sure you're really cycle complete.

Once you do start adding stuff do it slowly and let your system build up to handle the load.

 

[mike030987]

Figured as much. I actually have a 55 that I can grab some sand from. I just wasn't sure what to expect seeing as its good live rock from my qt and clean base rock. Didnt know if it'd be a large cycle or minor and what not. Never really used base rock before so new eith that aspect of it. I appreciate all the info and very quick responses as well. Thanks a lot.