Is it worth cleaning my rocks?

[the green goby]

I have pretty mature tank, the rocks have been live for six years now, about a year ago I went bare bottom. But in those six years my rocks have accumulated a lot detritus, I have nutrient problems and brown corals. Is it worth giving my rocks a acid wash and losing all the "life" and color(and pests) just to start with a clean slate?

My tank is 37g with 3 fish that I feed twice a week(I use to feed every day) if any one wants to know.

 

[nazarma]

I personally wouldn't do that. I have an extra power head that i use to blow all the rocks every time i do a water change. Hope this helps

 

[DasCamel]

+1

+1

I personally wouldn't do that. I have an extra power head that i use to blow all the rocks every time i do a water change. Hope this helps

Simple and effective.

 

[wildman926]

A good time to clean the tank.

Mix a batch of fresh saltwater, and remove the rocks and put them in the container of fresh sw.

Top off tank with new sw, and let your filtration take out all of detritus floating. When you put the rocks back, shake thoroughly in the container of sw, and from that point, you can use the power heads to clean the rocks during water changes.

There is a member that does something similar to that annually I believe, on his 120g, and it always looks great. Tank has been running since 1971.

 

[jda]

If you acid wash them, you will start the process of killing the bacteria on them, which is still doing something. This is doubly terrible since the bacteria that you killed are the ones needed to process the death that you just caused by killing them. Acid washing, drying out, etc. live rock is a really bad idea IMO.

If you want to clean them out really good, cook them for a few months... it works really well and when you are done, you will have clean rocks that are able to process phosphate again and maybe even handle the nitrate better (but they should do this now).

 

[Paul B]

My rocks have been in my tank over 30 years, some 40, I have not washed them yet.

 

[the green goby]

A good time to clean the tank.

Mix a batch of fresh saltwater, and remove the rocks and put them in the container of fresh sw.

Top off tank with new sw, and let your filtration take out all of detritus floating. When you put the rocks back, shake thoroughly in the container of sw, and from that point, you can use the power heads to clean the rocks during water changes.

There is a member that does something similar to that annually I believe, on his 120g, and it always looks great. Tank has been running since 1971.

I thought about doing this, i guess Ill at least try this option first. Maybe I can kill the hydroids with kalk paste.

If you acid wash them, you will start the process of killing the bacteria on them, which is still doing something. This is doubly terrible since the bacteria that you killed are the ones needed to process the death that you just caused by killing them. Acid washing, drying out, etc. live rock is a really bad idea IMO.

If you want to clean them out really good, cook them for a few months... it works really well and when you are done, you will have clean rocks that are able to process phosphate again and maybe even handle the nitrate better (but they should do this now).

Well If I did acid wash the rocks I was going to cure them before the went in the tank again.

Thanks to every one. If any one has more advice I'm still open to other options and ideas.

 

[the green goby]

I took all the rocks out and rinsed them in a bucket of salt water. One rock even had a large hole filled with mud, so I cleared that out. It's impossible for me to get rid of all the dead spots in my tank. I redid my aquascape to be more stable and I added two large dry rocks, one of them is in the front left.

Before


After


Now the rocks aren't against the back wall so Ill have better flow around the structure.

 

[cidbozek]

Why do you only feed your fish 2 times a week?

 

[Molly1414]

If you acid wash them then you would be killing all the good bacteria that you built up when you cycled your tank. You would then be starting from scratch again with a new cycle wich is not good if you have fish and coral in the tank. You will lots of die off on the rocks and nothing to process it with.