base rock/live rock

[mookie]

i have some pourus dry rocks i bought from petco a while ago that were used in my 55g cichlid tank. The tank was running for about 2 years but is about to be broken down and i will have some of the rocks left over, about 20lbs.
i am trying to help a friend get into the hobby
he has a 29g tank with a 2x65watt power compact light a super skimmer 65, and a very small budget.
i was wondering what i could do to the rock to clean it and make sure all organisms from the freshwater are out so he could use it as base rock

also if there is 20lbs of base rock how much live rock would be needed to seed the base rock for a 29g tank how long would it take.

-is there another rule of thumb, because to my knolledge 1lb of liverock per gallon is about enough, if using base rock does this rule change?

and is this even a good idea???

 

[mott768]

When I started my 29 I used 30 lbs of dry base rock and added 15 Lbs of live rock after about 6 months I noticed the rock started crawling with life. It depends on the type of rock you are going to use, pores rock is best with lots of holes.

 

[Candi]

as long as its the porus rock I think he'll be fine with it, I had a big rock with a hole in the middle from Petco when my 50g was fw, kept it as I moved up to brackish, and it's still in there now that the tank is a reef... it has coraline on it and little critters living on/in it. As for how much LR, I say it's a matter of preference as to how much rock he really wants... since he's saving on the initial base rock I'd recommend he cherry picks some really nice LR as his budget allows, I made the mistake of wanting all my LR at once and buying a "great deal" from a fellow reefer in MI... what I ended up with was a bunch of to small rocks (and some aiptasia/flatworms ugh).

 

[IrradiatedReef]

Cycle/cure the dead rock for a couple of weeks to clean it. Then once it is in the tank, add some live rock to seed the dead rock and in a few months coraline algae will begin to grow on it. You can speed this along by putting a piece of live rock and some live sand in the cure tub to help get some of the "critters" to move into their new home earlier.

 

[Phyl]

Before using the tank for salt, make sure that there were never any chemicals (particularly copper) that were used to treat the fresh water tank.

The previously fresh water rock will need to cure while the "fresh water bacteria" dies off and a saltwater culture is created.

The rule of thumb is still the same (1.5-2# per gallon is what I've always read). What you want to make sure to do is to increase the bioload slowly so that you aren't creating too much more of a need than the current ability to support it will allow for or you will cause a new nitrogen cycle. We started our tank with 80% base rock and 20% live rock and in a matter of months the coraline and other life had spread to the base rock.