Advice on re-scaping my 120g Red sea

Dae · Mar 28, 2023

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum but I’ve been a long time browser of this website. I am having issues re-scaping my tank, I can’t seem to find a style that I enjoy and gives all my corals/fish the attention they need.
My questions are: if I were to replace ALL of my rock with new dry rock and did it in 3 stages where I build a third of the scape outside of the tank, glue it together and then replace a third of my live rock and do this every 1-2 months would that be okay for my cycle? Or would this crash my tank?
The second question is, if I don’t replace the rock outright but take out my existing rock in thirds to be crushed and re-scaped outside of the tank and placed back in, what would you suggest I do to minimize death of the colonies of microorganisms on the rocks? Would this be too much time out of being fully submerged and cause a mass die-off crashing my cycle?

Thank you in advance!

MrPiGuy · Mar 28, 2023

So I did exactly this! My suggestion is find a massive space that you are okay with getting really wet and willing to deep clean afterwards (I used the garage). Have wet towels dipped in tank water or fresh saltwater to place over the rock to maintain moisture. Also have a bottle for spraying the rock with saltwater too so it doesn't dry out. I had mine out of the water for maybe 3 hours. You have to work quick and do it in batches if you can. I also had a large container filled with heated up saltwater to keep the rock in that I wasn't using at that moment (could also just keep it in the tank). You should expect a mini cycle due to some of the die off. You could always dose a little bacteria after you are done too.

I did not add any dry rock because that definitely could cause an imbalance in bacteria since that is untapped surface area.

Good luck and happy reefing!