How To Turn Dry Rock Into Live Rock (Cycling Dry Rock) - Saving You Lots of Money

Welcome to Simple Reefs. We have been talking about Live Rock as part of our series on staring a simple marine aquarium. If you have questions about what exactly Live Rock is, you should check out our article on Live Rock, Dry Rock, and Life Rock for a simple explanation. In this article we are talking about Turning Dry Rock Into Live Rock. Otherwise known as cycling your dry rock.

We previously talked about just what you can do when you want a glorious rock scape in your marine aquarium but are on a budget. Assuming you don’t want to spend the extortionate prices demanded by Live Rock. The solution is simple. We purchase Dry Rock and we turn it into live rock. All we need is some dry rock and, either, a small single piece of live rock, some live sand, or some bottled bacteria.

Let’s Grab Some Dry Rock

When starting your marine aquarium. If you are looking to save money, you should be purchasing a box of Dry Rock. This stuff is very easy to find. Amazon sells it in bulk amounts from well known aquarists for very reasonable prices. 20kg boxes retail for as little as £60 which is ridiculously cheap when you consider the fact that it is a one time investment. A 20kg box will suffice for even a moderately sized aquarium. When it arrives, it will be bright white. Over time, this will change.

You should be considering the size of your tank when deciding how much rock you want to have in there. Try this calculator on retailer RocknCritters.co.uk to get a KG amount, relative to the amount of water in your aquarium (Not a sponsored link). But the rules aren’t exactly as hard and fast as some hobbyists make them out to be.

Remember, you can run a marine aquarium without live rock, if you want to. If you have decent filtration, the amount you put in depends on what you can afford and how you want your rock scape to look. You can always add more, later on, as well. Though you may need to go through the curing process again.

Don’t be blinded by the strangely stringent rules people in this hobby set. There’s a level of inflexibility in the marine fish keeping community that goes completely counter to the experience of actual hobbyists who have succeeded without following said rules.

Before We Add The Rock to Our Aquarium

Before we move onto the process of turning our Dry Rock into Live Rock, otherwise known as cycling the rock. We need to make sure it is clean and, if necessary, cured. When we say cleaned, we simply mean that the rock has had a rinse to remove any dust off of it. This will be a welcome step even with things like Carib Sea’s Life Rock and other specialist rock as it may be quite dusty. Though speciality dry rock like Life Rock and Reef Savers won’t need curing.

When we say cured, we are referring to the process of removing dead organics from the rock to make it suitable for use in our marine aquarium. If the rock needs curing, it would be a bad idea to place it into the aquarium and move onto the next step as the die off may stall our cycling process. Not all dry rock requires curing, though. We talk all about how to clean your Dry Rock and how to know whether it needs Curing in this article. We also show you exactly how to cure your dry rock in a separate article. When that’s done, you can come back here and move onto the next step.

A Decision

Now comes decision time. Do you want to turn your dry rock into live rock using a piece of live rock that you purchase from your local fish shop or online stockist? Would you prefer to use live sand? Or would you prefer to use bottled bacteria? All three have their pros and cons.

Live rock is, probably, the simplest way to do this. You buy a piece and throw it into your aquarium or bucket with the Dry Rock. Allowing it to do all the work for you.

You will have the potential to introduce unwanted pests that live on the live rock you purchase but the process may be a lot quicker. If this sounds like the best option for you, take a look at our article on Turning Dry Rock Into Live Rock Using Pre-Established Live Rock.

If you want to use live sand, you have a bit more work to do. First off, if you want to know what Live Sand is, check out our article that offers a simple explanation. Live sand offers a significantly diverse range of bacteria but can be quite expensive.

Remember, this option is only for people who actually want a sand bed in their aquarium so may not be suitable for all. If this sounds like you, take a look at our article on Transforming Dry Rock Into Live Rock Using Live Sand.

If you prefer to avoid both of those options, you can use simple bottled bacteria. Again, this takes a little more work but is, probably, the safest option. You won’t be introducing any pests or nasties into your tank and you know where the bacteria came from. If this is what you would like to do, check out our article on Turning Dry Rock Into Live Rock Using Bottled Bacteria.

In Short

All three of these options will, eventually, result in the same thing. Your dry rock will begin the process of transforming from a barren, bright white, wasteland into surfaces teeming with bacteria, algae, and invertebrates. The process will take at least six months to play out completely. Although your rock will begin to become live within a matter of weeks. Much of its surface area will be taken up by algae for awhile. A stage we refer to as The Uglies.

It will take some time for the bacteria to reproduce to cover the majority of the rocks. It will take even longer to have true biodiversity, as well. With that being said, the money saved makes it worth the wait and that’s what Simple Reefs is all about. We are, after all, talking in the hundreds of pounds, here. You don’t have to spend excessive amounts of money on live rock. You can make your own and, in the process, know for sure that you haven’t introduced any pests into your aquarium.