Cooking Live Rock - Exact Process?

Hey all,

I'm cooking my live rock right now, about 2 weeks into the process and the red hair algae is slowly going away, but slower than I thought. I am cooking it in a white plastic Kent sea salt 5 gallon bucket with the lid on. Is the bucket letting in too much light since it is white? Should I wrap a dark trash bag around the bucket?

B.
 
stevenp,
You do not understand "cooking".
The organics are still in your rock.
You will learn that, sadly, the hard way.
Sean
 
Hi, what about dead rock, does it needs to be "cooked" too? When i say dead rock i mean artificial rock like riifkeramik from aquaconnect and also rock that was taken from reefs and let dried in the sun.

Alex
 
Sean,
Thank you, but I understand exactly what I'm doing.

I guess "cooking" may be a relative term. I suppose you could say I'm "nukeing".

Steve
 
stevenp said:
Sean,
Thank you, but I understand exactly what I'm doing.

I guess "cooking" may be a relative term. I suppose you could say I'm "nukeing".

Steve
Click to expand...
So, since you understand what you are doing,
does the bleach get rid of the organics?
Or does the sun and drying out get rid of the organics?
 
Sorry if I missed but is everyone using RO water to mix their makeup water? Anyone use just plane tap mixed w/ salt. I'm having to make up roughly 90 gallons for the tubs I'm using to hold the amount of rock I'm curing. 180 gallons of RO a week is something like 720 gallons of tap :D My water bill is going to be through the roof.
 
Yes, RO/DI water :) I assume it would take much longer with tap water since it would be defeating the purpose to some degree.

Yes it cost alot but its a one time thing. I have been doing it since

DEC 11.04 Rock Cooking First Step NEW 2 rocks March 5.05 First Clean
DEC 15.04 Follow up
DEC 26.04 Follow up
JAN 02.05 Follow up
JAN 09.05 Follow up
JAN 17.05 Follow up
Jan 27.05 Follow up
Feb 19.05 Follow up
Feb 27.05 Follow up
March 6.05 Follow up
untill late march

I did the procedure to the point for the first 4-5 months

As we speak my rock is still cooking. For the first time last week I started the procedure again since I will be setting my tank up in 4-5 weeks. Forget water bill. I will give you the bills for the Salt I have used.
 
I am going a cheaper route and using whats left of stress coat etc. and letting that sit, then adding salt the next day. I think it will work great bc I have 2 pices of Tampa Bay with a lot of die off. I also have those bloody small feather dusters, bryopsis, and a couple of aiptasia. I personally don't see the point of cooking LR if there is little life and dietrius on the rock. Although I believe my rock is 5-10 years old and cooking will work great I imagine.
 
I've got some rock in various BB quarantine tanks as I suspect one of the rocks harbours a snail eating worm. Am not feeding these tanks in any way, just changing the water from time to time and siphoning out detritus, and am not actually cooking my rock.

Anyway, I've been finding mounds of detritus in some of the Q-tanks and got to thinking something must be making all this detritus. I pulled each rock from their various tanks and found two crabs yesterday.

So I'm thinking more about the rock cooking process you folks are doing and am wondering if you have been thoroughly checking your rock for crabs. The hard part about finding crabs is that they find the best hiding places and are difficult to find. I use a 4" long, thin, rigid metal tool to prod into holes. Crabs that don't escape are stabbed then removed.

Anyway, just a thought for folks who seem to be getting lots of detritus throughout the cooking process. Excessive detritus may be the result of crabs eating coralline, etc.
 
stevenp said:
Sean,
Thank you, but I understand exactly what I'm doing.
Click to expand...
I don't think that you do.
You may very well kill off the algae on the surface of the rock.
However, the Phosphorous will still be inside the rock.

But, having said that, best of luck to you. :)

Regards,
Sean
 
I had lots of stains on my rock when I was done.. But you cant see any of them now! It has been ?5-6? months after cooking for me now.. I have a few bubble algae (5-10 total) And no other bad algae to speak of! The rock seems to get coraline coverd much faster than before.. I would say I had 30% covrage before cooking.. Didn't really loose all that much during cooking and now have around 80-90% covrage of all different colors. I am overall very happ with the process.
I cooked for 15 weeks but I did use a huge skimmer during the process.
Nate D
 
SeanT do you think a skimmer would help the process? In addition to the regular swish and dunk and changing of the water?

I'm all done cooking my rock I'm just doing the final cleansing as I call it right now. This will go on for 4-5 weeks. I was also thinking of running a Phosban reactor?

I have to say one rock I can see macro algae on:( It's not a big rock but it concerns me.

1 rock is no lose in the big picture but what if there are other small fragments of algea left?

The main algae is gone which is this one in the picture.


4256310-med.jpg


The one that remains is a burgany one same in color as the picture but unlike the one in the picture my old yellow tang loved it. What do you think?
 
NoSchwag,
I did have a few stains on the rocks were macros and such died off.
They are all gone now though.
 
Arconom,
A skimmer would help a bit but, IMO, is just a lot of extra work to maintain. I was too lazy (and cheap ;) ) to buy another skimmer just for this purpose.

Do you have a (or can you get) a close up pic of the algae that is remaining?

Sean
 
Sean,

Sorry to keep bothering you.. Gone now because they disappeared or gone now because there is other things covering them?
 
I can't understand this..

The last 2 waterchanges my water in my BRUTE didn't smell like anything. Now it smell like mold or something.. ::scratches head::

Oh well, Sunday is my next waterchange day.. We'll see how it smells next week
 
I just did my shake, dunk and roll for the first time since I started using ozone in my rock cooking container. Youzer - more crud at the bottom of my brute than the previous several months combined. ORP controller is set at 380.

David
 
David,
I would think that running ozone would hinder the cooking process. If not being run with a skimmer, all you are doing is breaking the waste down into a form that the bacteria can't use as well as killing any free floating bacteria in the water. Just IMO... I could verywell be wrong :)
Nate D
 
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