Starting the process of seeding my base rock

I just began the process of seeding my base rock (I call it dead rock). At one time the rock was covered with growth, but I lost most of it when I moved. You can see how it once looked on my photos. The rest of it, dissipated over time.

So now after reading the forum about seeding base rock, I purchased two new pieces of live rock from my LFS and, restacked my rock and will be sharing the process with you through photos.

If you have any suggestions about how to maximize the effect while minimizing the price, I am all ears. I'm not in a hurry - just don't want to spend the money to start all over again from scratch.

 

Hi, since you already have your base, look for live rock with corals i.e. Mushrooms, Green Star Polyps etc. Also, look for some of what I call "pretty rock" already encrusted with Red, Pink, Green or Purple Coraline. Add only 2-3 med. pieces at a time and each time add more live bacteria at double the Marine dose and repeat 3 days later. Also, make sure the Calc (380-420) and Mag (1250-1450) are maintained.

 

I just did the same thing I got 75 pounds of base rock. I too bought 2 peices of rock from my LFS that had major growth on them. I put it all together and it has been 5 days and I am already in the middle of my cycle with my Nitrites already hitting 1.0ppm. I dont think it will take over 2-3 months under the right conditions and you should in my opinion have growth on the base or in your words dead rock.

I am not saying your tank will have growth everywhere but you should start to see growth on the rocks.

 

It has only been four days and I have already seen the effects. The purple coraline has begun to spread to the base rock. As you suggested, I added two more small pieces of live rock and as you might be able to see in the picture below a Hawaiian black trigger who is hiding at the moment.

 

Nice puffer, looks like the one I had, just a little darker.


I dose a little bit of Kent Purple Tech to get my Ca, Mg up a bit. I have kept my Ca, Mg and dKH in the desired ranges lately (my Mg and Ca was low before) and my tank has been growing lots of color now. I have been testing those params weekly now.

 

That coralline is not spreading to the base rock in 4 days, takes much longer then that with correct water parameters. I would shut the pumps off, take a piece of LR with Coralline on it and break it off with a pear of pliers and crush it into little piece and let it settle on all the rock in the tank. Leave the pumps off for about 2.5 hrs to allow the spores to settle then start the pumps back up. This will seed for coralline growth.