Curing Dry Rock

[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

[MKLKT]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

What I like about live rock is that after 6 months, I'm still finding new critters. And reading this thread now, I'd never use dry rock. Sounds like a bit of a hassle. "IF" there was something in/on a rock that was going to eat my head, it sounds a lot easier to remove that rock than to go through all this "curing" for dry....no? And honestly, in all my years of live rock use, I had "pests" once that took 20 minutes to deal with, and was kinda fun doing it.

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

I'm the same. I like finding inverts that hitched along. I'm still finding new critters years later. The latest is a bright yellow feather duster. As much as I don't like certain 'pests' (speared and removed a whole bunch of bristleworms and asterina during my move), to me they go a long way to keeping a better system balance. If your tank is too sterile it's apt to cause more damage when a problem arises.

[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

[pseudonym]

ahhh! I didn't notice that we live in different parts of the country. Well the stores involved are actually the ones that sponsor this site. Aquarium illusions looked at me like I was crazy and asked with the DI in RO/DI meant and Blue World pointed to the one on their wall and said rather unequivocally "waste of money".

The multi pad is mostly there to filter out any heavy metals that might have somehow leached in through the pipes. So it filters out copper, lead and other heavy metals but does have some carbon.

I have a feeling that the need for RO/DI is heavily dependent on your local water conditions. I have always wondered if our water quality in Edmonton is one of the explanations for the rather stunning number of speciality fish stores in the city. Maybe people are just more successful in the hobby here because of the water quality?

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

ahhh! I didn't notice that we live in different parts of the country. Well the stores involved are actually the ones that sponsor this site. Aquarium illusions looked at me like I was crazy and asked with the DI in RO/DI meant and Blue World pointed to the one on their wall and said rather unequivocally "waste of money".

The multi pad is mostly there to filter out any heavy metals that might have somehow leached in through the pipes. So it filters out copper, lead and other heavy metals but does have some carbon.

I have a feeling that the need for RO/DI is heavily dependent on your local water conditions. I have always wondered if our water quality in Edmonton is one of the explanations for the rather stunning number of speciality fish stores in the city. Maybe people are just more successful in the hobby here because of the water quality?

Well yes and no the membrane takes alot of the crap out and there are different filters that do different things like the
Carbon will take the chorline taste out
if you get what i mean. Some place in BC use straight tap water and have a PPM of 1-3 ,however in my region of CANADA. manitoba Brandon. I'm on the east side the older part of town. the PPM is 350 but by the time it gets to me its 8-900ppm and a membrane dont last long maybe 6 months if that. and DI dont last long either if your memebrane is shot. what I would do is may be look up and read about RO unit s and then read about DI. you will get some great reading . if you have other question just PM I have no probles helping ya out or start another thread .
We don't want to take over ENIGMA's thread here.
sorry Enigma for babbling on .