Curing Dry Rock

[Daragon]

Hey Everyone

I'm turning about 50 lbs of dry rock into LR and have a question. I have a 75 gal frag tank that has 3 large pices of LR in it and I added about 50 lbs of dry rock (50 lbs of dry rock is a lot of rock, filled about 1/2 of the tank). My problem is my skimmer is now going out of control and fills the skimmer cup in about 1 minute with water. It is a Turboflotor 1000 Multi and I don't think it can be adjusted to run dry (verses running wet).

What can I do?

Huge water change?

Any ideas?

 

[Ray]

Let it sit for a while w/o the skimmer then turn it on maybe do a water change after 24 hours

 

[NateHanson]

can you put the turboflotor on top of something in the sump to raise it up? That will lower the bubble level in the skimmer.

 

[jango]

tried that didn't work.we thought the water level was to high after adding the rock so we raised it up.that didnt work...

 

[NateHanson]

can you shove a PVC valve on the output hose? That should also lower the bubbles.

 

[Lourdes]

I had the same problem with mine .. do you use any kind of water conditioner ?? I had to let my new one sit there for a few days until it stopped doing that.. are you using the neck extension too?

 

[~Flighty~]

Why do you need a skimmer? There shouldn't be anything to skim with just cured rock and dry rock. You should actually have to "feed this setup to support the life on the cured rock and have it migrate to the dry rock, right?

 

[jango]

dry rock still has a ton of debris in it we cleaned it pretty well pulled out a ton of sponge.this dry rock isn't like other dry rock totally clean just needs to be rinsed.this stuff basically washed up on shore in figi dried out put in boxes and shipped.

 

[Daragon]

I had the same problem with mine .. do you use any kind of water conditioner ?? I had to let my new one sit there for a few days until it stopped doing that.. are you using the neck extension too?

No water conditioner, it started as soon as we added the dry rock.

 

[~Flighty~]

The dry sponges don't have much if any nutrients in them. Same as the ones you use painting. There are a lot of dry sponges in my rock and it has been in standing water for a few weeks with no smell. Unless the rock smells bad, there shouldn't be much protein to skim, and you need some anyway to feed the biological process. The only reason you don't want a huge amonia spike id to protect delicate things on the live rock, but the amonia spike is what gets the denitrifying bacteria to grow.

 

[dz6t]

sounds like there are different kind of dry rocks. Where to get a good deal of dry rock? Is there a clear definition of "dry rock"?

 

[Ray]

Dry rock = Not wet

 

[dz6t]

Yeah, are they just rock or dead live rock (used to be alive)?

 

[Daragon]

PJ got it from Marc, you may want to ask him. It is awsome...

 

[~Flighty~]

Thats what I have. Lots of sponges, but dead and dry. No protein left to decay kind of like coral skelitons.

 

[dz6t]

what makes these dry rock so desirable? Thanks

 

[Piscevore]

THey are mad cheap per pound and very very porous, so they're light to boot.

They allow you to fill your tank with live rock in a short period of time.

 

[Daragon]

Last night I put my POS berlin skimmer cup (with a drain) on the Turboflotor (just happens to fit perfectly) and put the drain line into a 5 gal bucket. Well 2 1/2 gallon later it settled down, you should see the crap in this bucket.

Why do you need a skimmer? There shouldn't be anything to skim with just cured rock and dry rock.

Flighty, you should check out this bucket and then you'll change your mind. Yuk!!

 

[~Flighty~]

Not to be a PIA, but I'm wondering why mine turned out so different. I soaked it in freash water for about a day, then took a hose to it and sprayed off the brown flakey(now soggy) stuff on the surface of some of the rock. Most of the sponge is inside the rock structure and it stayed. The rock has now been in brackish standing water for weeks (plumbing got started, then stopped, finally almost done) with no smell or evidence of anything on the rock decaying. If you take a piece out, it smells like limestone or dry crushed oyster. Just a dusty calciumish smell.

 

[Chris A.]

Not to be a PIA, but I'm wondering why mine turned out so different. I soaked it in freash water for about a day, then took a hose to it and sprayed off the brown flakey(now soggy) stuff on the surface of some of the rock.

There`s the difference.You soaked yours and then brushed it off.I believe he didn`t do that.