With all due respect to the way things used to be done, lighting is a very important part of reef life. Keeping rock in the dark kills off the very organisms that we want to thrive in our tanks; the organisms which live to maintain the reef in good working order.
Why do it in a tub? If you have a tank already up and running, simply place the bare rock in that tank and let the existing biological filtration handle the resulting pollution from the dead rock. Depending on the amount and quality of the dead rock, and the amount and quality of the LR, the process could take less than a week. Keeping lights on with some macroalgae to absorb the pollution will prevent the organism killing high N levels so typical in the old way of "cycling" a tank.
Keeping the lights on 24/7 will handle extreme cases.
If you already understand the idea of seeding bare rock with LR then please don't stop there. Realizing that algae is the basis of all life on this planet, why would we allow it to die by keeping LR in the dark? I mean, what is the life on LR if not partly the algae that grows on it which eats the pollution(N compounds) caused by the living bacteria decomposing the organic matter. LR is also live because of the little bugs growing in and on it that eat the algae and in turn become food for larger organisms in our "little part of the ocean"?
Edited by Mark Peterson - March 04 2010 at 12:37pm
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