Live Rock Cooking

[pepe.king.prawn]

I'm considering cooking some or all of my rock before I move it to my new tank and I'm wondering what the general population thinks of rock cooking. In some ways this process seems identical to the water changing we all do periodically, only slightly accelerated in attempt to cleanse the rocks from a bit of excess detritus and get rid of nuisance algae.

For those who may not have heard of rock cooking here's a link:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=437342
P.S. there's no heating involved, just water & darkness!

Feel free to share any experiences if you've tried this process. Thanks everyone!

 

[bluenassarius]

worthless. only masking the problematic algae. from my understanding, you basically "starve" the pest algae so it cannot grow. the only problem i see with this "cooking" is that when there is a nutrient spike all this "cooked" algae reappears.

the only method that i've tested with proven results in removing problematic algae is taking a torch to the rock and burning where the pest algae grows. it doesn't grow back unless you have the pest algae in another section of the tank to spread from.

 

[pepe.king.prawn]

I don't really have a problem with algae, aside from a little bit of bubble algae, but I'm more so looking to produce the best results with growing SPS. The claim goes something like: "cooking rocks removes phosphate from inside the rocks". Someone along the line I guess decided detritus = phosphate, hence I'm not sure if I buy this, but either way I would probably agree it does help to wash all the dirt out and kill off algae and anything photosynthetic if you wait long enough. Thanks for the reply!

 

[fragaholic]

Yes.....If I could do it over I would have cooked my rocks for sure. I am constantly battling detritus! Since I have gotten into SPS and the husbandry involed I am blowing the rock off everyweek to try and keep the nutrients down. I assume that the rocks would have shed most of the detritus when cooked and saved me some trouble now.

 

[boviac]

I had a tank up for three clean years when I started adding the liquid from frozen food thaw in two separate tanks and almost simultanously a few months later Debresia (hair algae) started to appear in both. Now after over a year of several dedicated but unsuccessful attempts to eradicate I am siphoning gobs of detritus off the bottom of my sump every water change. Never had this problem before the hair algae. My rocks were never cooked. When you cook the rock where does the phosphate go? Seems to me it potentially just gets stored for a later spike.

I have to move (AGAIN!!!) Ugh but I do love my tanks! Upon new setup I think I'll try Blue's method of torching it. I know at least the coralline will grow back but hopefully the Debresia won't . I've got a phosban rx finally running with Pura Filter pads in the sump that need weekly changing due to detritus. I believe this time I will succeed!

Good luck whether you cook or not!

 

[pepe.king.prawn]

Hey, thanks! I think many of us have had a bout with hair algae at some point. I have yet to resort to the blow torch method , but frequent changes with DI water, siphoning the sand bed with water changes, blowing detritus off the rocks with a powerhead and just keeping my system clean in general seemed to deter all algae growth except for bubble algae :mad2: .

I really couldn't tell you where the phosphate supposedly goes when you cook the rocks. It is claimed that it goes into the water in the container you're cooking in, but I see no reason why it would go into that water any more so than it would the water in your tank system . The bacteria supposedly "feed off the phosphate" since there's no light for algae to power themselves on. I'm skeptical. I completely agree, cooking undoubtedly removes detritus from the pores in the rocks, but this is likely a short term benefit, and removing detritus from rocks migh as well be called "washing" so much as "cooking".

Good luck with your hair algae, let us know what works for you!