cleaning rocks

[Pensky]

Is it ok to take rocks out of my tank and clean them with a toothbrush to clean some of the algea off? I am fighting some green algea and I really hate how it looks. I understand that this does not fix the problem, but it looks so much better.

 

[HowardW]

Well depending what life is on these rocks I would do a water change and put the old water in a shallow rubbermaid tub and then put the rocks in there and lightly brush off the algae while they are under water.

 

[foob]

Re: cleaning rocks

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7084495#post7084495 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pensky
Is it ok to take rocks out of my tank and clean them with a toothbrush to clean some of the algea off? I am fighting some green algea and I really hate how it looks. I understand that this does not fix the problem, but it looks so much better.

Could buy some cleanup crew (snails,hermits) to clean it up. Less trouble and they help maintain it.

 

[Pensky]

i have quite a few cleaning critters, but it has been a long time since I had a skimmer running. I just installed the skimmer 3 days ago and I thought I would give it a fighting chance by cleaning up what is all ready there.

 

[ezhoops]

take it out and scrub it, I do it all the time. I even leave mine out for a day or two. Just don't remove all the rocks. Yeah some bacteria will die but so will the algae and then put it back and it will re-seed. Some may disagree with this but it works.

 

[Pensky]

anyone else ever done this befor?

 

[infrared69]

i have . alage dies out of water, just do one rock at a time. i benifecial bacteral wont die, it just goes dormant. or i also put it in my sump for a week with no lighting. algae dies rock remains.

 

[sanjosereefer]

Yeah, I do it when a rock gets really annoyingly green. Usually I just let the tank "fix" itself. Haven't had any issues. As tempting as it is..don't scrub the rock inside the tank. It will just spread. I assume you already knew that...I learned the hard way.