LR Cooking....Will Prob. regret this.....

[CaveManNOhio]

I have been reading some of the threads on cooking rock and why some are doing it.
To me how ever it makes no sense to buy good LR at the prices that it is sold for, then taking it home and destroying every thing in and on it.
I mean don't you buy it for the fact that it is living? Isn't a lot of the stuff you are killing serve a purpose? Mother nature seems to think so. It may not all be colorful and do unique thing's, but non the less serves a purpose.
To me it seems that you are better off trying to control the one thing that bugs you rather than wiping out every bit of life on a rock. Life that complements life in way's we may not understand.

Just my 2 pennies, please don't be to nasty. You can do with your rock what you want. Me, I will sit back and watch life do it's thing.

 

[Weatherman]

Re: LR Cooking....Will Prob. regret this.....

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6432178#post6432178 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CaveManNOhio
To me how ever it makes no sense to buy good LR at the prices that it is sold for, then taking it home and destroying every thing in and on it.
I mean don't you buy it for the fact that it is living? Isn't a lot of the stuff you are killing serve a purpose?

What do you believe is going to die as a result of "cooking"?

 

[SeanT]

Yep...nothing is dying on these grand scales.

 

[Weatherman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6432749#post6432749 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SeanT
Yep...nothing is dying on these grand scales.

I'm, actually, curious as to what CaveManNOhio believes gets killed by the "cooking" process. It seems to be a common perception (even among some ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œexpertsââ"šÂ¬Ã‚).

 

[CaveManNOhio]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6432749#post6432749 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SeanT
Yep...nothing is dying on these grand scales.

I don't see how you can say that. What happens to all the creatures that are living in there? All your feather dusters, worms, copepods...the list goes on.

When I look at your after picuters SeanT I see rock. I see no life to it any more.

It kinda goes back to why take something living from the ocean and kill every thing on and in it. To me you might as well go and just dig up some interesting looking rock's out of your yard and use them. And let the ocean keep hers. The ocean is giving you some thing that is full of life and benifits many of the creatures you are putting in. In ways that I don't think a lot of people understand truly.

 

[Weatherman]

Goes back to my original question...

Why does that stuff die?

 

[CaveManNOhio]

I can also see this going to the point of people later finding out that it's not the best thing to do. Then be forced to find ways to put back what they took out.
I just see it as every thing you get from the ocean comes with all this stuff on it. There for it must have a purpose, weather it be a food source or food producer. Could even have some thing to do with certain chemicals being and staying balanced. Just because it doesn't look pretty or you can't find a way to control it doesn't mean taking it out and cooking it is the best answer. I feel most will find that it is a short term cure with long term effects. I mean if you got the HA to begin with, what makes you so certain it wont come back. I had HA and now I have none. Didn't cook any thing either to get rid of it.

 

[Weatherman]

What dies and how does it die?

 

[CaveManNOhio]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6433315#post6433315 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Weatherman
What dies and how does it die?

Every thing dies, at least from what I can tell in the pictures I see of the after cooking. What is the purpose for cooking it? To kill, is it not?

SeanT: do you have any of the little creatures still on or in your rock when it comes out of cooking? Feather duster, copepods, peanut worms, and the things you can only see with a magnifine glass.

Am I right or wrong, don't all of those things die off as well

 

[Weatherman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6433406#post6433406 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CaveManNOhio
What is the purpose for cooking it? To kill, is it not?

It depends.

Some people will cook rock to kill nuisance algae. Doesnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t always work. Some types of algae are remarkably tough to get rid of.

But, I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t think anyone cooks rock to kill animals. At least not intentially. It wouldnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t serve any purpose to do that.

All cooking does is allow things that were dead, or are doing to die anyway, a chance to die and decay away. If rock is transferred from the ocean and all the animals are healthy and vital, they will easily survive a few weeks in the dark, as long as water temperatures are comfortable (70s and 80s) and there is enough food (dead, dying and decaying algae and animals, usually, provides plenty of food).

Got to keep the water in the cooking bins warm and well aerated. Otherwise, it's true; you might as well save money and get dead base rock.

 

[CaveManNOhio]

All I know is when I see the after pictures it all looks like plain old rock.

What about the different creatures that I named off, all of them come out alive and well?

 

[Weatherman]

Well, I've had urchins, snails, feather dusters and bristle worms, along with the standard variety of tiny copepods and mysis shrimp all survive the cooking process. The things that died were sponges, but they were in very bad shape when I first got the rock, so their demise seemed to be inevitable.

Fully cooked live rock does look very clean. Almost sterile. But, that's because there isn't hardly any algae. The surface offers a clean settling spot for coralline, so coralline algae growth takes off very rapidly. There's no waiting for the other algae types to complete their succession.

The clean surface also offers a nice settling spot for baby pocillopora.

 

[CaveManNOhio]

That is a cool picture.
Thank you for taking the time to help me understand why some are doing this. But I just can't help but to think that you are taking some thing away from the big picture. Some thing that some may not understand yet.

 

[Kent E]

Weatherman what is that red vine on your rock? I seem to have that too, I don't know where it came from.

 

[CaveManNOhio]

Red Algae I think. Tangs love the stuff.

 

[Weatherman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6434207#post6434207 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kent E
Weatherman what is that red vine on your rock? I seem to have that too, I don't know where it came from.

Itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s a rhodophyte (red algae).

And, let me talk a little more about that type of algaeââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦


Since Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m a firm believer that no reefkeeping procedure, currently in practice, is without some negative side effect, Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m going to throw out the following theory for people to chew on:

We should not attempt to kill off all algae hitchhiking in on fresh or fully cured live rock by cooking it.


Hereââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s why.

Of my three tanks, my 120 is the only one with fully cooked live rock. The tank has water so nutrient poor that green algae barely grows. All the typical macros like lobophytes and halimeda didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t survive the cooking process.

Now, in this environment, I, by mistake, introduced a low-nutrient-tolerant rhodophyte. It appears to be the nastiest, most unpalatable algae imaginable. It has no competiion for space or nutrients from other macros (except for Dictyota), and nothing eats it, so within a course of about six months it has reached plague proportions.

The question isââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦ Would the rhodophytes have still become a plague even if I had not cooked my rocks?

 

[bennyinca]

CaveManOH: Does your version of rock cooking has anything to do with hitting 212F?

Cooking LR the way it is mentioned in several threads in RC should not wipe out much life in your LR. But you will see a ton a detritous being cycled out of your rock inbetween water changes. You choose how long you commit to the process.

 

[CaveManNOhio]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6434269#post6434269 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bennyinca
CaveManOH: Does your version of rock cooking has anything to do with hitting 212F?

:lol: No I'm not looking at cooking it at high temps. I'm just saying it seems to me that when you look at the after pictures like the one in the beginning of SeanT thread cooking rock...it does work. All his rock looks void of any life.
After all aren't some of the things that get wiped out a food source or maybe some other type source for some thing that is not understood fully by us in the hobby. After all doesn't a lot of it come out of the ocean with it already.

 

[photobarry]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6433406#post6433406 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CaveManNOhio
Every thing dies, at least from what I can tell in the pictures I see of the after cooking. What is the purpose for cooking it? To kill, is it not?

SeanT: do you have any of the little creatures still on or in your rock when it comes out of cooking? Feather duster, copepods, peanut worms, and the things you can only see with a magnifine glass.

LOL How the heck are you going to see "the things you can only see with a magnifying glass" in a small photo of a tank posted online. The rock could be crawling with life and you would never notice. Sorry, I just had to ask.

I've let some rock cure for extremely long periods of time and have still found snails crawling around over 4 months later. And I don't think we get the level of diversity from LR that we have been led to believe. Nearly every tank that I have ever seen (regardless of methodology) has the same small group of invertebrates and algae. The absolute majority of life found on the rocks in the ocean does not survive in a reef tank for any length of time. Knowing that, I think that extended curing to help minimize the chance of undesireable life taking over is worth the risk of maybe not getting a small number of the limited variety of life that will survive in the tank long term. However, if you want to run your tank in a more organic way and don't mind potentially having to deal with nuisance algae, aiptasia, or other photosynthetic pests; then rock cooking is probably not for you.

 

[CaveManNOhio]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6435061#post6435061 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by photobarry
LOL How the heck are you going to see "the things you can only see with a magnifying glass" in a small photo of a tank posted online. The rock could be crawling with life and you would never notice. Sorry, I just had to ask.

I guess what I was getting at is it's life supporting life. I'm not really cocerned about taking pictures of the stuff I can only see with a magnifying glass and posting them(although it would be cool if I had the equipment to do so). Not when I have much cooler things to take pictures of and post on line

I guess you could say I am running an organic system. I just like the natural look of my rock. I'm being educated on our group site to about this subject. I am new to the hobby, 8 mo. now.
Still not sold on it though.