How long will it take Dead rock to become live rock?

[robertwerschmidt]

I put about 80lbs of dead rock in my tank, and about 120lbs of live sand. Will the live sand organisms move to tge dead rock? And if so how long should it take?

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[jef4y]

The sand won't likely seed the rock. What you need is something to kick off a cycle. In my opinion, the absolute best way to do this is to add some fully cycled liverock. Just a piece or two from a LFS or a member will do just fine.

You can buy other bacteria starters which will help do the job, but I still prefer using liverock. (and then there's adding ammonia, peeing in your tank, using a deli shrimp, etc. none of which I personally use).

In general the process will take 6-8 weeks.

 

[ringo®]

JeF4y;881886 wrote:
You can buy other bacteria starters which will help do the job, but I still prefer using liverock.

I normally swear that anything fish related that comes in a bottle is just snake oil. But, I've cycled 3 tank with Seachem Stability and the longest one took about 2 weeks to fully zero out.