Cooking Live Rock - Exact Process?

Hi,
Always use saltawter. Much of the beneficial life will remain thru the cooking process such as sponges, pods, etc.
Freshwater would kill off a lot of it.

If it is cold then use a heater. :)

Sean
 
Hey, looking at moving a bunch of 4 year old rock to a new tank & noticed this thread. I live right on the beach south of LA. What do you y'all think about using real free ocean water from my back yard for this 'cooking' process? I wouldnt necessarily trust it in my tanks, but certainly for the swishing steps it might be OK?? Perhaps the cooking phase as well?

-jamie
 
If it were clean I don't think there would be a problem.
If it were.
I don't know the level of pollution in that water or what pollution it is.
 
hmm, according to the california coastal commision website Sunset Beach is the #1 cleanest beach water in southern ca & is currently showing very low bacteria counts. I'm not sure that answers any of 'our' questions though!
 
npaden said:
Sarcasm off.

I understand the process, I just don't understand the reasoning behind it. This hobby is so funny to watch as the pendulum swings from one side to the other. When I got my rock it was important to get the freshest "Raw" rock with all the algae and crap still on it. I cured it in the display tank right off with a 5" DSB. It's over 3 years later and the tank looks great. No nusiance algae and I'm not worried about it.

The keys to a nice tank IMO are a really good skimmer and really good water flow. You can cook your rock for years and if you don't spend the $ on a good skimmer and have good water flow you are going to end up with problems down the road.

FWIW, Nathan
Click to expand...

Quoted for truth.

Same thing in my tank.
 
If what you are doing works by all means kep doing it.
I took the walk down the rock cooking road solely because of the losing Bryopsis battle I was fighting.

I stand behind its merits 100% but I am not saying everyone should do it. It worked for me, it will work for everyone, but it would be a big PITA if not needed.
 
curing rock

curing rock

if you want to get any unwanted critters out... just put the rock in a container and adjust the salinity to something above .030.. any bristleworms & such will scury out in a stampede(10-15min let sit tho).. then rinse the rock in RO/DI also works wonder for getting rid of aptasia.. but if dealing with aptasia.. i left mine in 30min just to be sure. oh and BTW.. i used table salt just to save on my reef crystals. :) worked like magic!
 
I don't think people are talking about killing a critter at all here - in fact this method should preserve most if not all.

I thought the purpose of `cooking' was to help remove all the excess detritus and gunk in the pores of the rock that would help fuel algae growth on the rock.

As for worms, pods, featherdusters, etc etc ... dark should not harm these guys significantly, nor would driving the system bacterially ... it should just affect detritus :)
 
I agree, that sounds more like "sterilizing" the rock. If you want sterile rock you can just go with base rock. That would be a good method to use if you want to get rid of a pest and you know what rock it is hiding in but I wouldn't want to do that to all of my rock.
 
MiddletonMark said:
I thought the purpose of `cooking' was to help remove all the excess detritus and gunk in the pores of the rock that would help fuel algae growth on the rock.
Click to expand...
Correctamundo, and doing so while keeping a lot of the 'beneficial' critters alive.
 
Hey, looking at trying this out - what are thoughts on cooking temps? It came up here already but w/out numbers. Would 60 degree water be a problem?
 
As stated above - you want things the same temp as your reef tank, as you want to preserve all the critters, worms, bugs, ... LIFE on it - everything but the algae IMO.

Thus if you drop the temp to 60, you'll likely lose all that life.

At least in my book, that's not what I'm trying to do here. My `cooking' tank seems to have a lot of `small life' in it.
 
everytime I have cooked rock I have done it at about 2 degrees over what I keep a dislplay at,, this may be something in my head,, but since their is no light , the higher temp speeds metabolism up a little to help sustain pods, bacteria etc,,,,

Nathan
 
I've been watching this thread with interest as I've had a problem with a very tough turf algae. I also decided that I had inadequate flow in the tank which was probably part of the problem. I've taken steps to improve flow by installing steam pumps and a controler and also decided to cook my LR as its about 5 years old and would benefit from the process.
So far it's been cooking for about three weeks, and I'm very impressed with the amount of " mud " thats come out when rinseing so I think it's worthwhile continueing.
I'm hopeing to finish the process dureing the Christmas break as I'll have time then to landscape the tank.
Can anyone give me an idea how long it takes to kill this turf agae by cooking, as so far, although it's stopped growing any bigger, it aint dead yet !
I'll be grateful for any advice.
cheers
John:thumbsup:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
200 Gallon Mixed Reef - Rock Questions
2
Replies
20
Views
478
wvned
wvned
R
Stay Away
Replies
6
Views
191
saltypilot
S
vlangel
75g Lurking danger and Leafy Seadragons
12 13 14
Replies
265
Views
11K
vlangel
vlangel
F
New Reef - Need recommendations
Replies
13
Views
2K
Cdentata
C
H
Aquarium & live rock left in yard need cleaning
Replies
4
Views
959
griss
griss
Back
Top