Hydrogen peroxide to clean rock?

[Al]

I have a few pieces of dried live rock that I would like to re-use. There's been some discussion here about chemically cleaning rock but bleach requires a lot of rinsing and muriatic acid is not something I would risk in an apartment. How about H2O2, would that effectively oxidize the organic material out?

 

[bertoni]

It'd remove organic material to at least some extent. One reason for using muriatic acid is to dissolve away the top layer of the rock, on the grounds that the top layer often is contaminated with phosphate. Hydrogen peroxide won't remove phosphate, but it should be good enough to kill most everything and do a fair amount of organic removal.

 

[tmz]

I agree. It will take a good deal of hydrogen peroxide though. The standard stuf is only a 3% solution so you really an dilute it much more. I'd add the acid bath is also to remove any toxic metals ,like copper that may be sticking to the rock if it was previously exposed to it. Vinegar though weaker might have some of the same effect and is more apartment friendly.

 

[Al]

Suppose I were going to use a mix of dried, previously live, rock and the BRS fiji (Which I know from experience is full of dead sponges and algae). Do you think that a weeks bath in straight vinegar, followed by a weeks bath in full strength H2O2 is worth doing?
I wouldn't even consider going through all this trouble, except that live rock prices seem to have really gone up the last few years.
And thanks for your help.

 

[tomservo]

You can find high strength H2O2 at hydroponics shops (usually 30%) and at pool stores that carry the "baquacil" products (baqua shock - 27% H2O2).

I doubt that vinegar will do much re: dissolving the rock. Acetic acid is actually a pretty strong acid but vinegar is only 5-7%, which means you will need 5-6x as much as you would muriatic acid (27-30% typ conc). Assuming calcium phosphate (or most other common phosphate salts), you will get phosphoric acid by adding either type of acid above. Thing is, that phosphoric acid will probably just react with the carbonate(Calcium, Mg, Ca-Mg etc). I suspect you'll mostly just move the phosphate around with an acid bath, and release a bunch of hydrogen and CO2.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think you'd have to consider this experimental. Bleach is very effective at removing organics, probably much more than normal hydrogen peroxide.

 

[Al]

Again, thanks to all. If I go that route, I'll use bleach to clean out organics. Otherwise its dealing with the high costs of decent LR. No way would I use BRS rock without removing organics first.