Here is what I've been waiting for.

[reefworried124]

My rock came today right after school. I think the guy sent it last night and it got here around 12 pm. The rock looks cool! They are really big pieces and still have some purple coraline algae on it. I bought 50 pounds of it, and I put 40 in the main tank and about 10 in my sump/refugium. The guy I bought it from was really dope, instead of 3-5 day, he did it overnight, and he even included a little critter in a plastic bag! I'm not sure what kind of crab it is, but it is in a little shell and the crab is blue. It was so awesome, I just dropped him in the tank and he went right to work, cleaning the first rock he came in contact with. I think I will name him "Pauncho" after officer Paunchorello from chips. So I went to the fishstore and picked up some kent calcium buffer part A and B, and that guy told me to buy the calcium buffer and some stuff called "reef solution" by ecosystem or something like that. He says it has all the stuff for corals, like magnesium strontium and iodine. What do you guys think?

and heres a question..The guy I bought it from says the rock was fully cured, but since it was in the mail overnight, should I turn the lights on for only 4 hours, or leave them on for 12 hours?

[yousuredo]

cool beans

[Jeremiah]

Be carefull adding iodine. If you don't have a reliable test kit for iodine I wouldn't add it. It can be fatal.

That beeing said, congratulations. I remember setting up my first tank. It wasn't that long ago, just about a year now. I remember how exciting it was to finally get it going and have my very own reef in my house.

[JennM]

The guy wasn't dumb for sending it overnight - in 3-5 days it would have been a stinky mess. It would survive alright but you'd have more die-off.

Congrats

Jenn

[Phishnoob]

I would thank the guy for his kindness, but what do I know.

There is some great advice that has a link on my work box and will be posted tomorrow. We had great luck with all of our rock scraping off the dead stuff and giving it limited light. I think we did four hours a day and increased it half of an hour a week. This was done in a hand me down 90g tank but a rubbermaid tub works as well. We did not add anything except premixed water at 1.024 with a ten percent change a week.

There were comments to leave it completely alone and others to scrub away on it so we did a once a week blast with a powerhead and used a butterknife to pry off dying material.

There was a cycle that took about five weeks and it was about seven before the rock in a tank began to work. I still do not understand why you need the time after the nitrites die off to make the tank a happy place, but the longer the time on the rock the more it seemed like a buffer against change.

Good luck with your tank.

[tims]

since it was fully cured and if you want things to live instead of die off, i would turn the lights on ..you may or will have some die off.. hopefully not sice it was shipped so fast..
good luck! lets hear some updates and it goes along!