Cleaning rock so far so good....

[MarkKlier]

After 14 years my rock are loaded with aptasia,majanos, and hydroids....
After great input from everyone I descided to treat each rock over time with clorox. So far I have treated about 1/3 of the tank. This is what I found.
After about 20 minutes almost everything on the surface is dead.
Majanos tend to turn hard and stick to the rock. If you use fresh water before the clorox they tend to let go and fall off...but then they stink!!!!!

There is no foul fish smell with the clorox...just you know the smell of clorox

I can rinse the rocks 2-3 times with water. Then I add some ydrogen peroxide to nutralize and leftover clorox.

I have well over 100lbs of live rock in the sump, so will be watching to see how much stress this will cause the system.

Feel like I'm getting the upper hand for the first time in a long time....

By the way...big thanks to TMZ

 

[jfl14609]

Re you using any type of de chlorinator or just the peroxide

 

[MarkKlier]

Thanks Jeff and Mike for the help. Well I must say it all worked better then i thought. Able to kill off at least 100 aptasia, and just as many majanos, and probably a couple thousand hydroids (wish i were kidding) So far the system looks okay. Even the sensative polyps like the rasta colony looks good. We will see what happens this week....

 

[block head]

I just finished an acid bath. Hoping to reset the tank with some extra squeaky clean rock. I went a little crazy with the muratic acid.

 

[LUCKYLATO]

Muratic acid? Wow are you stripping the rock? I did a peroxide dip for my rock it was about 10 + yrs old. Most of the aptasia died off same with manjos bur I see some small ones coming back. How do you do the bleach bath?

 

[jfl14609]

No problem Mark anytime. Muriatic acid is really strong and not very safe imo. Mark has been using strictly bleach with some peroxide after in ro water and its stripping the rocks right down. The best part is he is able to return the rocks to the tank in an extremely fast manner so you can do this without taking the tank offline

 

[LUCKYLATO]

can you explain the method I would like to try this .

 

[MarkKlier]

Just take a salt bucket out two gallons of clorox in. Set the rock in for 20-30 minutes. Then take it out rinse in the sink with fresh water. Use a tooth brush and knock off any dead stuff still on the surface. Then put in a bucket with fresh water and add some hydrogen peroxie. I used about a cup. If it still smells like clorox, rerinse. At that point I was able to put the rock back in the tank.
Warning....do not use other cleaning agents with clorox, you can release clorine gas if you do.

 

[naprestsleep]

Does 1 cup of H2O2 do that much when mixed into water? Is it regular drug store h2o2? I am thinking of doing this for my refugium to get the claurpa off my rocks.

Thanks -- Joe

 

[MarkKlier]

If you rinse the rock well first it decrease the amount of clorox greatly. Then the hydrogen peroxide/water should finish off what is left. Any hydrogen peroxide is fine. I have a large system so there was plenty of rock in my sump to offset the rocks I cleaned in the system. If you are doing your sump be carefull not to crash the tank...

 

[naprestsleep]

Thanks. I haven't figured my plan out yet. I got about 130 lbs of rock but only 20-30 will be effected. I don't plan to place it all back in the refugium either. Some will be dried out or go in another tank.