Fully cured live rock should not cycle on introduction to a new salt water aquarium.
What Steve has said above is right - it really all comes down to the rock being fully cured on introduction. If it is, when it enters your tank, then there should be no problem.
I've noticed a lot of replies lately about fully cured live rock going through the 'recognized' cycling process. I really don't think that this is true. The reason I don't say that "it categorically isn't true" is because I'm waiting for an answer to a question from some microbiologists - hopefully within the next week (all established tanks cycle continuously but this is beyond test kit detection )
Fully cured live rock has nothing on it that will die back. With no die back, there can be no cycling of the rock - end of story.... - ish . There is the issue of 'osmotic shock' to address though. From what I believe, the Nitrosomanas sp. of bacteria found on/in live rock don't have a cell wall that allow the rapid transfer of water into/out of the cell (this is what I'm trying to establish). So, osmotic shock should not be a major factor.
That said, if anybody doesn't agree with me, then why do Steve, STM, Fantasea etc (all purveyors of quality fully cured live rock) say that their rock is ready to go
? Provided that the rock arrives with you within 12-24 hrs then it should be fine. The only way this rock will 'cycle' is if some of it has died during shipping (unlikely, given the experience in packaging of the sellers) or if you kill some of it on receipt.
Provided that your salt water is set-up in accordance with your salt manufacturers’ recommendations, then there really shouldn't be a problem.
I've only set-up 6 reef tanks thus far (nothing, compared to others), all using fully cured live rock as the main filtration, and I've stocked each tank within 2 days of the rock going in . So far, I have suffered no fatalities as a result of this start up procedure (fatalities down the line are a different issue ). Now, I'm either the luckiest Taff reef keeper around or the suppliers of fully cured live rock are right .
Once I've received the answers to the questions I've asked, I'll write a diatribe on this subject . If I'm wrong, then I'll go gracefully
Cheers,
Jerry