Marcorocks

[Chihuahua6]

I'll be rinsing mine with a garden hose and then soaking in 10% bleach solution. After a day or so I will rinse and soak in water with dechlorinator added. This is how dead coral decorations were treated in the 80's when I started this hobby. It's the same idea as the vinegar soak but probably faster and less smelly imo. Why in the world are you folks soaking in saltwater, doing water changes, waiting for weeks on end etc.? Get it clean as fast and cheaply as you can and use it.

 

[jawfish1]

Chihuahua, what type of dechlorinater do you use? I was thinking about this method as well, but it's been a number of years....

 

[sirreal63]

My goal in soaking in vinegar was removal of the outer layer of rock as this is where phosphates are bound plus it cleans the rock of contaminates. Bleach will not do that. Also removing any biological matter before soaking is crucial to not stinking up the place it is soaking. Bleach is not a bad idea I am just not sure it is needed.

 

[StrategicReef]

I would definitely cure it in another container and not be putting into the final tank.. it's just going to make your new tank very dirty.

The rocks shapes look awesome, just that they have alot of holes and many mussels, sponges dead stuff you cannot necessary get too... the vingear soak and scrubbing has helped alot.. then it's ready to go into saltwater cure..

I thought about bleach, have seen people done it too just too chicken out to try.

I also agree it's a bit different than uncure liferock, think about rehydrating all that dead stuff.

I processed and scrubbed the whole 50 lbs order in my bathtub, and it was pretty labor intensive and was wondering if it was worth the money saved over the quality life rock.. but the shapes are pretty awesome and wait till it's seeded with coraline and feather dusters in a couple years I think it will be worth it

 

[sirreal63]

It is definitely worth it. It took minimal effort to clean, vinegar and a stiff plastic brush after picking the dead matter off it. I have had more time and labor in curing live rock and much more stench. The beauty of it is you do not have to have it in saltwater to clean it, only put it in saltwater after it is ready to go into the tank. The time difference is days instead of weeks. Of course live rock has it's own benefits but if you have the time and patience to let the Marco become live I think it is definitely worth it.

 

[Kannin]

I just finished my reef that was made of Marco Rocks...

 

[StrategicReef]

wow, I dropped a skimmer into the tub of macrorocks today.
There is unbelievable amount of foam and suds it literally blew the cap off the skimmer cup. after repeatedly siphoning out the sud for 4 hours. the skimmer has slowed down a bit now. I havn't gotten any brown crud in the skimmer cup yet. I guess the dead stuff had released alot of phosphate or whatever organics that make it very sticky.. I didn't use soap or detergine when clearning my rocks..

 

[sirreal63]

If you cleaned it in the bath tub you may have gotten a little soap scum or residue on the rock no worried, it will dissipate if you did. My skimmer didn't go nuts with mine but I made sure it was very clean and no biological matter left on the outside of the rock.

 

[StrategicReef]

no, actually I used a plastic box in the bathtub to work with the rocks. Not sure what happened just loads and loads of bubbles from the skimmer.. might have to do a 100% water change.

 

[sirreal63]

I don't think you will need to do a 100% change...let it skim a few days, it will clear up. Filter floss will help too.

 

[StrategicReef]

Ok thanks for mentoring me through this, the skimmer is not pulling alot of foam anymore just light yellow wet skimmate.. but nitrite and nitrate is 0.. Not sure that means the cycle is done or just 0.. didn't check for ammonia because it smells ok.

 

[siwelk]

FWIW, yesterday i decided to use an acid bath to clean my marco rocks. after pricing the amount of vinegar i would need to do a 50/50 vinegar water mix, the muriatic acid was 1/3 the cost. so i whipped up a 10:1 mix of water and muriatic acid in a 20g rubbermaid and added the rocks. holy hell, the trashcan was soon overflowing with nasty brown bubbles and continued to do so for about an hour. i dumped the mix out and found that a good deal of my rock had disintegrated. not entire rocks, but it was definately noticeable. it made some of the more pourous rocks very brittle. if i had to do it over again, id probably use the 50/50 vinegar mix instead. the rocks did come out very clean looking though. theyre currently in a 15g freshwater soak, with two koralia 3s for water movement. they have been in there about 20 hours so far. i plan on doing a couple 100% water changes and letting them run for about 48-72 hours. there is almost no stench and the rocks look really clean. i would have liked to have kept more of the original shape though.

 

[StrategicReef]

Hey the vinegar is 5% acidity and 50/50 made it 2.5%
You used 10:1 muriatic acid that seems like alot to me?? I used this kind of dilution to etch concrete..
well I think muriatic in bottle is 30% acidity? so I dunno maybe yours is 3%.. I had no degrading of rocks in vinegar I left it in there 2 days. Vinegar is much safer..

 

[Kannin]

I used a 10:1 water/vinegar solution for 4 days with powerheads in it. It wasn't completely done but, I built may reef with it mostly cured and I am finishing it in the new tank.

 

[siwelk]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11693848#post11693848 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by StrategicReef
Hey the vinegar is 5% acidity and 50/50 made it 2.5%
You used 10:1 muriatic acid that seems like alot to me?? I used this kind of dilution to etch concrete..
well I think muriatic in bottle is 30% acidity? so I dunno maybe yours is 3%.. I had no degrading of rocks in vinegar I left it in there 2 days. Vinegar is much safer..

i had seen a few people mention a 10:1 mix for the acid bath before. i just went off of that. it wasnt precise, but i added about 14g of water and a little under a gallon and a half of the acid. it didnt turn out bad, just a little more brittle on a couple pieces than i would have liked. when i get them clean and dried ill post some before and after pics for comparison.

 

[siwelk]

heres a link to my build thread showing some before and after acid bath/vinegar bath pics of my marco rock. im too lazy to group them together, so ill make you check out my whole thread to find the various shots

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=11934814#post11934814

 

[StrategicReef]

OK after the vinegar and scrubbing a few weeks later the skimmer still have alot to work with! this is all in my rubbermaid right now.. I recently changed 100% water and added a heater now running at 80F to accelerate the process and pulled this out in a few days... But this is why you should give it as long as you can before putting it into a tank with other livestock!!

 

[lancer99]

I am surprised to hear about y'alls' experiences with marco rocks. This is the 50 lbs I got (the bubble wrap is 24" wide, for reference):

It was very clean, so I just rinsed it off, and placed it in my 75G (lots of circulation, skimmer), along with a couple of pieces of cycled LR. I did two 30% water changes, siphoning up detritus, and after 10 days it was cycled.

Maybe I just got lucky?

-R

 

[Aquadome]

lancer99

Is that a recent shipment?
I ordered mine several weeks ago and still have not seen them.
I have tried to contact them and have not received any info back.

 

[TandN]

I have the same experiance as lancer did. Me and my husband went up to Marc's place and hand picked our rock for our upgrade. No smell nuttin. When we got back to NY we see up a 75g for the 125lbs of Marcorocks and let it sit in RO water for the night the next day it smelled but not horrible like some are stating. We did a 10g WC w/ high concentration of SW added a heater and 2 tunze 6100's to the tank. In a week we changed 20g added a skimmer and testeed on the 9th day Amm/trites/trates were all 0. Water was clear hardly any detruis at all. The simmer though is producing the same bubbles that S.Reef was talking about. It is a very very very thick foam that really doesnt breakdown. We have a euro reef on the tank