major mess

[Brian5280]

I bought a complete 65 gallon set up from someone this weekend for a really good price. The only problem was that EVERYTHING including the snails were covered in a thick coating of green hair algae and hundreds of aiptasia. I have all the animals living in a tub for now and I have tossed all the rock out in the yard. How many days do you think I will need to leave it out there to kill all the anemones?

 

[epicfish]

If you're gonna dry out the rock, might as well just bleach it just to make sure.

 

[Brian5280]

How do you bleach it?

I have a few chunks of rock left in the tank but 90% of it was so covered in aiptasia that I really didn't see any other way to deal with it.

 

[Fig]

1/2 cup of bleach per gallon of water. Leave your rock in for a week and then soak in fresh water with a dechlorinater. Another week usually does the trick with a fresh water changed 1/2 way through.

 

[Snowboarda42]

Or boil it, but its more of a mess that way. Plus it smells.

BTW, you'll turn all of the Live Rock into Base Rock if you bleach/boil it.

Get some good, quality Live rock from someone's tank thats got a good reputation and add it to your display when you're done boiling/bleaching.

 

[gjm258]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11121915#post11121915 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Snowboarda42
Or boil it, but its more of a mess that way. Plus it smells.

I should have thought of this Sunday! I have a big turkey frier/ crawfish boiling rig, I can get it going out in the yard and have all the rock cooked in a 1/2 hour and ready to go back in the tank.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Aquarist007]

in what condition is the sand bed---your tank will need to cycle the cleaned live rock--but if you kept the sand bed alive it will take less time and seed the cleaned rock for you

 

[BangkokMatt]

If the tank is in that much of a mess I would use new sand. Use a couple of cups of old sand to seed it. It sounds like this tank is going to need to cycle anyway.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11126662#post11126662 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BangkokMatt
If the tank is in that much of a mess I would use new sand. Use a couple of cups of old sand to seed it. It sounds like this tank is going to need to cycle anyway.

that's actually not a bad idea--I tried to save a 30gal once that had been neglected for six months, complete die off of all corals ect--in hindsight--I would have been better off doing what you are doing and starting over--it just wasn't worth the time and cost for dealing with the ammonia and nitrates caught up in the rock and the substrate.