how do i let the dark side take over?

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Not exactly. First, you don't cure the rock, since it had no die-off. Second, the difference between a cycled tank (not producing NH3/4) and having functional live rock, is the presence of denitrifying bacteria deep in the pores of the rock. This is going to take much longer than a couple of weeks. With dry rock in a NH3 free tank, you have pretty rocks. With real live rock, you have a filtration system for your tank that reduces NO3 to free N, giving a (mostly) complete nitrogen cycle. This is why a mature LR tank can be NO3 free, while with decorative rock, NO3 builds and requires water changes for dilution.

thanks for that post Brad.....Ive been trying as much as I can to get this point through to people......we are seeing a lot of people coming to the shop with this problem or that problem and through talking out their systems we find out that they have used a large percentage of dead rock and have stocked the tank wayyyyy to fast for the colonizing bacteria to
"catch up"....... maybe we can sweet talk Mindy into doing a "dead rock" article and make it a "sticky"?