curing live rock

[-Drew-]

About how long on average does it take to cure live rock?

A friend of mine had a 20g tank that he sold, but the buyer didnt want the rock. So he put it on a table outside and let it bake in the sun. He gave it to me after the fact.. so now I have it in a few 5g buckets with a powerhead in each bucket to circulate the water. Any idea how long I should wait before I put this rock in my 55g tank?

[Jared J]

Depends on how much dead organic stuff is on it. If you scrubbed it well and soak it in the saltwater, you should monitor the ammonia levels. They should spike then come back down. You could also cook the rock depending on how fast you want it in the tank. Cooking takes longer but pulls more phosphates and junk out of the rock.

[jenglish]

time is just a rule of thumb. You need to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. When the first two are 0 then its cured. Normally I think uncred takes 3 or 4 weeks but your mileage may vary. You may want to cook the rock. there are some threads on TRT on how to cook rock

[-Drew-]

So all I really need to worry about is the nitrites and the ammonia?

[jenglish]

yes basically.... as far as the curing. you want to be removing all the die off with jets of water or a brush and removing it from the water periodically. If you are reading ammoina or nitrite it may not neccasarily mean that all the die off is complete but there is atleast the bacteria established to process the nitrogen