If you use SW then some of the organisms on the rock may survive.

Oh ya, you don't need to use a light while cycling, this could cause algae to start to bloom.

Any rock where there's been a lot of die-off will stink to high heaven as it is re-cycling. Putting it in a Rubbermaid bin in your garage would probably have been less nasty.

You should definitely keep using SW as the ammonia given off by the dead stuff will help feed and repopulate the nitrifying bacertia.

In hindsight, after the tank was "killed" if you friend simply left it in SW in a Rubbermaid in a garage with a powerhead running - you probably don't even need a heater unless it's the dead of winter - the live rock would have stayed quite "live" for a long, long time. Live rock is surpringly tough and resilient. Freezing it just killed everything and took up freezer space.

The rock was left out a couple of days ago. I'm guessing it was -5c outside.

Another thing I learned about LR was the amount of bristle worms in them. I've cleaned out the tank twice and I've sucked up tons of the worms. Kinda gross lol!

Those rocks are write offs! Man how did he kill the tank...curious to know so you can prevent one of our tank sitters from @$##in up!

Yeah I would be ****ed also! Anyways I'm just going to try to seed the rock again. Don't know if it will work but if it does I will save alot of money. In the SW hobby you can spend alot! All I can do is try eh!

It will work I started with mostly dead rock and it is full of life now after 6 months.

It's been 3 days now and I've changed the water 4 or 5 times. The smell is not near as bad as it was at first. Plus I moved the rock in to a rubbermaid container. I hate apartments I wish I had a garage for this stench!
Anyways going to do one more water change then add some live rock from my 10G tank.

Mmm, I like the smell of fresh un-cured rock :)

made my girlfriend gag!!