Curing Dry Rock

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I guess I just don't get the dry rock crowd

That's because you're clearly a "go with the flow" type of guy. I'm an uptight, anal-retentive, class-A personality type of gal.

My blood pressure is fine, thank you.

(that doesn't mean ALL folks who use DR are uptight, anal-retentive, class-a personalities)

[pseudonym]

interesting responses! I can understand not wanting pests, but not being able to play the "Live rock lottery" would be a real disappointment for me! I love the little critters I am finding. Several banded brittle stars, a serpent brittle star and what appears to be two orange co-co worms! (those could also be from my co-co worm). I guess I also have a different view on "pests".. I kind of look on having a pest as having a self renewing food supply for something cool that eats it!

[molotov]

I cured mine with normal tap water. It worked very well for me. Why would you use ro/di water? I don't see a benefit.

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by molotov

I cured mine with normal tap water. It worked very well for me. Why would you use ro/di water? I don't see a benefit.

So that impurities from the tap water are not absorbed into the rock.

[Coasting]

Sure there are nice critters in the rock, but you have just as good of a chance getting bad pests.... Or man eating pods by the thousands... Plus most of the time its not that hard to grab a pod or brittle star and toss it in with the curing rock later on.

I only use tap water for my tank, guess I cant say anything against that one. But isn't there a difference between the bacteria that helps filter in FW vs what helps iN SW? Wont the bacteria that colonizes in fresh die off when its tossed in salt?

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

interesting responses! I can understand not wanting pests, but not being able to play the "Live rock lottery" would be a real disappointment for me! I love the little critters I am finding. Several banded brittle stars, a serpent brittle star and what appears to be two orange co-co worms! (those could also be from my co-co worm). I guess I also have a different view on "pests".. I kind of look on having a pest as having a self renewing food supply for something cool that eats it!

You still wind up with a lot of stuff using the dry rock, as things come in from other places. I have a huge amphipods, a bunch of mini brittle stars, feather dusters everywhere, bristleworms, spaghetti worms . . . the list goes on and on.

The dry rock really just slows the speed at which the life appears, as it is introduced more slowly along with corals.

I've also brought in debersia, red turf algae, green bubble algae, bryopsis (perhaps two strains of the bryopsis). Aiptasia has hitched rides into my system on corals, as have colonial hydroids, and one majano. I've caught these things very quickly each time.

[Skimmerking]

Shelley:
I see it this way if you take the Rock and run it in RO/DI water with the Salt, hook up a strong batch of GFO and runn it strong to suck out the PO4 from the rock, raising and lowering the temp with force the PO4 to leech faster. I read it some where on line.

its a pretty good thing to do, and with nothing in the tub /bin you are GTG


does that help you out any


Mike

[riceboy]

lol well it seems like i was the lucky one as i did not have any problems with algae with dry rock, lets see if the nano will have an algae bloom lol once i can start it lol

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

Shelley:
I see it this way if you take the Rock and run it in RO/DI water with the Salt, hook up a strong batch of GFO and runn it strong to suck out the PO4 from the rock, raising and lowering the temp with force the PO4 to leech faster. I read it some where on line.

its a pretty good thing to do, and with nothing in the tub /bin you are GTG


does that help you out any


Mike

Skimmer king.. oh god. I believe I have just met my nemesis! 1v1 at the sun and wet noodles at dawn!

So far I have gotten extremely contradicting information on RO/DI water. I ended up not using it and so far have had none of the problems I was told to expect on line. I was quite surprised when I went to the LFSs and found out they don't use it. But could that be because I let my water sit in a container for quite some time with a power head and a bubble pushing water through a multi filter pad before adding it into the system?

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

Skimmer king.. oh god. I believe I have just met my nemesis! 1v1 at the sun and wet noodles at dawn!

So far I have gotten extremely contradicting information on RO/DI water. I ended up not using it and so far have had none of the problems I was told to expect on line. I was quite surprised when I went to the LFSs and found out they don't use it. But could that be because I let my water sit in a container for quite some time with a power head and a bubble pushing water through a multi filter pad before adding it into the system?

your multi pad does what actions?
running water creating bubbles all you are doing is allow air into the water keeping the PH up. you are not taking anything out. in order to get phosphates out of water you need a binding agent like rowphos, GFO. Now you state that you are getting info from LFS. However lots of LFs in the pass would give crappy info. There are top notch place out there like BWA, RCE, RCC, RConline, I know there are others out there and Sorry for not stating your store.

With RO/DI water in my terms and my language is pretty much naked water. other then CAL and ALK that you can't take out., Phosphates, sediment, all the other stuff is taken out. so using RO water and then going to RO/DI water its like Honda VS Caddy.

HTH