Doing a Rock Swap

Ok, most of my base is live rock or fossilized coral that's been colonized by bacteria. I have a couple of other pieces that I am going to get rid of, one because I think it may be volcanic (not a rock from my other thread, but after learning about those I looked a little closer to what I already had) and the other because I think it's a carved tufa rock and it just doesn't look natural. In addition I think one of them is contributing to my water cloudiness.

So, I'm going to go to the LFS tomorrow, and pick up about 5 pounds of LR to swap out.

I'm buying live because I don't want to take whatever bacteria out that already exists and replace with plane base rock and decrease my bacteria count and mess up my balance.

Am I on the right path here to changing rock? bacteria in - bacteria out kind of deal or is there another step I should be taking?

 

If you are changing 5 lbs I would go with dry it shouldn't hurt anything. The live rock may well cause a cycle.

 

Looking at it now, it may be closer to 10, but my biggest fear is just taking out too much bacteria.

Thanks for the advice!

 

I took out 11lbs of base and added 15lbs of live with no problems.

 

My base that I'm taking out is now live so I would be going the opposite way, taking live out and putting base in.

 

Rock swap complete, took out the red lava type and the two tufa rocks replaces with some stuff from nice new stuff. I like the look a lot better and the tank looks a lot more natural. ended up adding 8 lbs of rock.

in case it doesn't translate well in the pic, the rock design is horse shoe shaped with a small "bridge" over the front edge.

 

Ok, well it looks like I accidentally started a mini-cycle the ammonia 1.0 and nitrates 20 are up, nitrites zero, calcium 420, ph 8.3

best way to squash this? I assume water changes?