Dipping live rock in muriatic acid

[lespaul339]

This thread is about dipping live rock in muriatic acid to start my tank over.

After a long battle with aiptasia in my 150 gallon, I'm throwing in the towel and killing off my live rock and starting my tank over. Not looking for any other advice on how to kill aiptasia. Tried it all. I'm done battling it. I'm getting rid of it for good. Acid bath time. :uzi:

Going fowlr this time around. Just want less maintenance. A reef is cool, but I'm kind of over how much work it takes. I got into this hobby for the fish anyways.

Any recommendations on how long should I dip the rock for? I don't want to over do it and dissolve away too much of the rock, just looking to kill off aiptasia and dissolve the organics on my rock so my rock won't leach phosphates after I get it cycled. I've read anywhere from 15 minutes to some people soaking it for 2 hours. I don't want to ruin the integrity of my live rock. Just kill it off and start over, and hopefully not have a phosphate spike afterwords.

I'm fully aware of proper safety procedure to do this. Proper hand, eye, and respiratory protection. Outside in a well ventilated area. Neutralize acid with baking soda when finished. Just looking for advice from people that have done this. Just want to do this right so I don't ruin my rocks in the process.

 

[lapin]

Two factors apply here. Strength of the acid solution. Type of rock and how encrusted it is. If the rock is high in carbonate the acid will eat away the rock material faster after it has burned thru the coating of stuff thats on it. It will also nutralize the acid solution. 15 min is a good starting point. I would do 1 rock and as a test to gauge the effect.

 

[lespaul339]

My rock is BRS reef saver rock.

 

[d0ughb0y]

you soak it till there are no bubbles (more like froth). repeat until there are no more bubbles.
you also want to soak in chlorine solution.

 

[lespaul339]

Why the chlorine solution? Can't I just neutralize with baking soda after acid bath and soak it in fresh ro water for a week or two?

 

[d0ughb0y]

no, don't mix it. the chlorine solution is for killing organics and is a completely separate process. obviously, rinse the rocks between soaking.

 

[Rover88]

Some people swear by doing a bleach bath first, then a muriatic acid bath (or flip it around) just to be doubly clean.

If you mix them... bad mojo. My LFS did it for me, and he only says do one or the other, never both. But yeah, just neutralize and let it soak for a while.

 

[jeffp1]

I acid washed some fiji rock and if you leave it in there very long, your rock will be dissolved. Left mine in 10 minutes and should have taken out earlier.

 

[swclown]

I just went through this same process for the exact same reason a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, I did the same thing a year before and ended up back where I started. Two years ago I did this and put everything back together. I used the acid washed rocks as a base and seeded with some new LR, LS and bacteria. I washed every inch of the tank with bleach. Everything was ok for a while and then it happened. One Aptasia became two and then a thousand. The LR and possibly a coral purchase I suspect were the culprits and I was back where I started. Peppermint shrimp were never an option due to my Hawkfish and nothing else worked well over time.
So a couple of months ago I decided to hit the reset button again and did the exact same thing only this time I used "Real Reef Rock" instead of traditional rock. It's been about 4 months now and the tank has never looked better. I went through a diatom phase that lasted maybe a day or two and a VERY small hair algae outbreak that went away after a water change. Right now things are just awesome. I added a couple of corals but was careful with my inspection and quarantined them for a day or two first.

I did the acid and then bleach. The acid doesn't take long to do its thing. You'll know when it's done as it will stop foaming and will settle down (half and hour at most). I didn't use backing soda after. The rock itself will buffer the solution throughout the process but I guess it wouldn't hurt. When the acid bath is done the solution is basically neutral. You can reach in (or at least I did) with a bare hand to remove the rocks when done. Then I just rinsed with hose water and soaked in bleach water over night, and the one more night in RO water. The process is easy and not as complicated as you would think. It just takes time. The hard part is getting the fish housed somewhere else for the duration and not stressing them too much. And once your tank is empty if you're like me I took the opportunity to re-engineer things and redo some things that delayed my progress substantially but everything turned out better than expected.

Good luck. Don't over-think it and you'll be fine!

 

[lespaul339]

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone. Appreciate any and all input!

Unfortunately, I did the same thing a year before and ended up back where I started. Two years ago I did this and put everything back together. I used the acid washed rocks as a base and seeded with some new LR, LS and bacteria.

Yeah I plan on starting it over with a dry rock cycle so I don't end up in the same boat again. Then after it's cycled it's going to be a fowlr tank. I'm just done with the hassle of taking care of corals, and the possibility of introducing unwanted pests that come in on LR that coral is attached to. I just want to get my tank to the point where it's as minimal maintenance as possible. Don't mind the normal cleaning maintenance, just don't want to deal with the hassle of a reef anymore. Plus, without corals there are some cool fish options that I couldn't do before with a reef tank.

hard part is getting the fish housed somewhere else for the duration and not stressing them too much. And once your tank is empty if you're like me I took the opportunity to re-engineer things and redo some things that delayed my progress substantially but everything turned out better than expected.

Good luck. Don't over-think it and you'll be fine!

Thanks!

Thankfully, I still have my old 60 gallon tank, a 29 gallon tank, and two ten gallon tanks. Should be enough to house my fish for a month or two. going to keep them cycled with live rock from the sump. Then after I get display rock back in tank and cycled, I'm going to kill off live rock from those tanks before adding it back to my sump. So will be doing this rock killing process twice.

Definitely plan on doing some maintenance while its empty. It's an acrylic tank, so I'm going to buff out some fine scratches that are in it while it's empty.

 

[lespaul339]

I acid washed some fiji rock and if you leave it in there very long, your rock will be dissolved. Left mine in 10 minutes and should have taken out earlier.

Wow. What percentage of water to acid did you use? From what I've read it should be a 3 to 1 ratio. So three parts water to one part muriatic acid.

 

[jeffp1]

Used a 3 to 1 ratio. I have had this rock for 22 years. Rock other than fiji probably doesn't dissolve as quick. I had been warned from another person about it dissolving quick.

 

[NO3]

I had Aiptasia on a global scale.

I got rid of it doing two things:

- Bought a large size CBB (as big as the palm of your hand)
- Made my own "Kalk paste" and attacked the medium to large size Aiptasia

My CBB.....and most CBB.....will seek out and eat any Aiptasia that's baby small in size. When the Aiptasia grow to where their tentacles can sting the eyes of a CBB the CBB won't touch them

Trick is to wipe out med to large Aiptasia knowing they will spawn babies but let the CBB attack the babies.

Process takes about 6mos.

But you're prob elbows deep into this acid bath....

 

[Xxero]

Will the Chlorine procedure alone guarantee all dead organics?

I'm also at a reset point because of Aiptasia, but I don't want to go the Muriatic acid route.

 

[swclown]

This may be a known, but I don't think anyone mentioned it. The 3:1 ratio of muriatic acid to water is what I used, but MOST important is that the acid is added to the water (slowly but nothing crazy. you can just pour it out of the bottle into the water like you normally would)and not the other way around. If you add the water to the acid the reaction can be very unpredictable and unsafe.

 

[jeffp1]

Will the Chlorine procedure alone guarantee all dead organics?

I'm also at a reset point because of Aiptasia, but I don't want to go the Muriatic acid route.

I acid washed mine to try to remove phosphate from rock. Bleach alone should be good unless you feel your rock is leaching Phosphates as was mine.

 

[MondoBongo]

This may be a known, but I don't think anyone mentioned it. The 3:1 ratio of muriatic acid to water is what I used, but MOST important is that the acid is added to the water (slowly but nothing crazy. you can just pour it out of the bottle into the water like you normally would)and not the other way around. If you add the water to the acid the reaction can be very unpredictable and unsafe.

always a great thing to call out.

muriatic acid isn't as scary as you might think to use, but make sure you take the appropriate precautions.

do it outside, in a well ventilated area, away from pets and people.

make sure you're wearing at least some PPE's. nitrile gloves and safety glasses are never a bad idea.

as swclown said, make sure you carefully add the acid to the water, not the other way around. this cuts down on splashing.

have some baking soda on hand in case you need to neutralize. they sell huge bags of it for swimming pools that you can get fairly cheap.

bleach bath is probably fine, but i will say that my rocks came out of that acid bath clean as a whistle, and i really liked that.

you can also do a vinegar bath, and achieve a similar effect. although it takes a lot more vinegar and time, and is less cost effective.

 

[Apercula]

I cleaned a batch of old dried out formerly live rock with bleach and muriatic acid (not at the same time). The rocks came out very clean with no signs of organic material.

 

[Daddi0]

I soaked my rocks in straight vinegar - did the trick

 

[NO3]

This is just my opinion.......but soaking reef rock in muriatic acid seems like doing landscaping around your house with sticks of dynamite....

Reef rock is very porous and I would think the center of the rock would hold unto acid deep within its center.

Every break a 2 weeks old LR that is dry on the outside and split it in two? The center is still "moist"

Given that I would soak the reef rock in super hi alkalinity like a slurry of Kalkwasser. I believe Kalk can have a pH of like 17 (?). I don't think any Aiptasia eggs or microbabies could survive a 7-10 day soak of a solution of 17pH.

If all that Kalk soaked in the middle of the rock slowly leaches out of the rock....I woukd think it would be less harmful than an acid leaking out a reef rock.

Just my two cent opinion......and how I would approach it...