"cleaning" Live rock question

H

Hightower33

New member
I posted this before in reef discussions, but didnt get too much response.

I have a friend who had a tank crash, and then had it sit for about 4-6 months with not much water movement or life in it other than unwanted little creatures, lots of hair algae etc.

Question is: What is the best way to clean this rock of everything that could be bad. Is it just a matter of it sitting outside in fresh water as it is now, or should it be boiled back to base rock?

I imagine thier could be a decent amount of phosphate that has leeched into the rock.
 
I wouldn't ever boil rock. That doesn't seem very safe or useful. I'd probably scrub off the hair algae and then use the rock. It might be safer to treat it with bleach and then dip it briefly into muratic acid, but that'd definitely kill everything.
 
I had a hair algae issue and aptasia issue in my sump. I took the affected pieces of rock out and scrubbed it under tap water with a very coarse brush then left it outside for 4 days. Then I placed it in a 15 gallon spare tank with a specific gravity of ZERO, with a remora skimmer for a week. After a week I got virtually no skimateat all so i placed it all back into my tank. The rock turned white, so I got everything. No chemicals needed. Total cost -free.
 
How about "cooking" the rock. I saw a thread on here about it somewhere. Takes a lot of time but you end up with nice live rock instead of dead rock.
 
Interesting ideas.

Currently the rock is sitting in big pails outside with fresh water, not salt water, and the hair algae has just died.

So either the rock is ok like that or I need to get all the phosphate that it could be harboring.

I wonder what kind of coral lifeforms could rehabilitate themselves if it went back into the tank like that.
 
Since the rock is sitting in fresh water, anything that was ever in it as far as saltwater live rock is gone, dead, ka-put.

At this point if you want to use it, I'd rinse it thoroughly and put it in a new tank with some good live rock from the store. It is going to take a long time to re-seed the rock.

When you see folks refer to "cooking" live rock they are NOT boiling it. Cooking refers to the process of curing live rock from 1-3 months in a dark container (covered, no light) with power heads and a heater in saltwater. The water is changed weekly about 50% or more. The rock is swished around inthe old slatwater to remove detritus and crud then placed back into the fresh changed water.

This is done to remove phosphates and other organics from the rock while keeping the bacteria inside the rock alive. The theory is that this greatly reduces the chances of having unwanted nutrients and algae grow in the display tank.

HTH
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9140705#post9140705 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Henry Bowman
Since the rock is sitting in fresh water, anything that was ever in it as far as saltwater live rock is gone, dead, ka-put.

At this point if you want to use it, I'd rinse it thoroughly and put it in a new tank with some good live rock from the store. It is going to take a long time to re-seed the rock.


HTH
Click to expand...

Why not put it in my aged tank? (2 yrs old) Assuming there is 0 phosphate from all the hair algae.

It may look funny for awhile, but the reseeding should take effect from that should it not?
 
yeah, put it in an established tank and give it some time. Make darned sure you rinse the rock good. It may have dead stuff in the cracks and crevices that you dont want in the current tank. The dead stuff could cause your established tank to have an ammonia spike (small cycle).
 
Well thats good news.

What about the possibility that his rock has absorbed phosphate. He used tap water I believe and had alot of hair algae which probably indicated there were high amounts of phosphate in there.

Would sitting in fresh water have diluted it?
 
After rinsing the rock, I'm not sure. You could be prepared by running a phosphate reactor. You probably can get a reactor and media for around $50....
 
If you want to remove phosphate that has adsorbed, you could try a fairly brief dip in a muriatic acid bath, made of 10 parts water to one part muriatic acid. I don't know whether that's worth the effort, and muriatic acid requires careful handling.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9142141#post9142141 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bertoni
If you want to remove phosphate that has adsorbed, you could try a fairly brief dip in a muriatic acid bath, made of 10 parts water to one part muriatic acid. I don't know whether that's worth the effort, and muriatic acid requires careful handling.
Click to expand...

Sounds dangerous.

Would there be in fact phosphate in the rock, or should I not worry and just put it in my tank after rinsing it.
 
There might be phosphate adsorbed onto the surface. I wouldn't do the dip, but I'd be ready to remove the rock if there were problems. I don't like the idea of handling muriatic acid.
 
I would scrub it down, clean it every other day till like a week. Store in a bucket with salt water at 1.025 salinity and temperature at 75-78F. After scrubbing process, make sure you clean the rock well, now cure it. Curing mean leave the rock for about 2, or when ever, weeks, test the water makeing sure no amonia, nitrite, nitrate. If nothing present, then place the rock in the tank. Make sure you cure your rocks right.

Curing LR
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=532645
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=723635
 
Ok you are referring to curing live rock which has been brought in from saltwater and has die off which you want to get rid of.

Previously , it was mentioned that sitting in the freshwater for a few weeks would have killed everything.

So why would I have to go through the curing process again.
 
I know this was posted a bit ago, but...

"Then I placed it in a 15 gallon spare tank with a specific gravity of ZERO, with a remora skimmer for a week. After a week I got virtually no skimateat "

Do you know why we don't use skimmers on fresh water tanks(fresh water = ZERO specific gravity)? With a different specific gravity the bubbles are different sized and with a sg of 0 the skimmer just will not work. AKA no skimateat.

I think the biggest thing if you are adding this rock to an existing tank, do it one rock at a time. The fastest I would add them would be one a day, but if you are patient and can wait even longer it will be better and safer.

Jon
 
haha, who would place skimmer in a FW, some do, just for experiment, but it's funny. I totally agree with you on the skimmer and adding one rock at a time, once a day, Gordonious. If you have patient you can place them once a week to be safe, because adding LR can change your nitrogen cycle. Some uncure rock, or new cure rock that has unfamiliar bacterias that the tank doesn't reconize, and can lead to crash, if not cautious. IMO. I heard it happen, I seen it too. Adding too much at a time, aren't good.
 
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