muriatic acid question

[Capt_Cully]

Once you soak with this stuff (understanding it needs to be cut with water) do you air dry like you would with vinegar or bleach? Or do you need to rinse liberally with clean water then dry.

I'm going to basically make my own Marco Rock by soaking all of my mojano/halmeda infested rock in a Muriatic Acid vat along with some hardware (PH, heaters, etc...).

I've done it with bleach before, but I want to strip this rock down to its barest element and start from scratch with a nice piece of LR from an established, pest free tank (I'll revisit that later)

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Cully

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

Might try the Chem forum with this; I think you should rinse it well, maybe neutralizing it with backing soda?

 

[Reefski's]

just rinse with water and you will be fine. there will still be a lot of dead stuff inside the rock and it will need to cure/cycle again.

 

[Gravesj1s]

baking soda would work fine.

 

[Conesus_Kid]

Rinse liberally with water. You'll be fine.

 

[tmz]

After the acid bath without a bleach bath I'd just rinse it . If you can,take it outside and hose it down. You'll be removing the surface layer of the rock which will dissolve in the acid bath. Don't over soak it since the rock can melt away. The fumes are harmful so ventilate or do it outside.

There may still be some die in the rock.Personally, I'd do a bleach bath first to kill and breakup organics then rinse several times and do the acid bath to strip precipitants . There may still be some reisidual bleach requiring drying time and/or dechlorinator. Placing the rock in ro water and testing for chlorine is a reasonable way to figure this out.

If you do use a bleach bath and an acid bath be carefull . As you probably know bleach and acid together are dangerous, producing chlorine gas.
For the heaters and such , just the acid bath should do fine.

 

[Capt_Cully]

I have bleached the rock. It has been drying for about a week. I was going to do it in the back yard in a rubbermaid stock bin for about 48 hrs. Should I be concerned about a haz-mat situation because I've already bleached it? I'm sure it's not completely dry or evaporated. I did cut the bleach a ton. Maybe 2 cups in about 25 gallons of flat tap.

 

[puter]

Mark,

Rather than take over this thread I put together another with step-by-step directions:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914426

Hope it helps,

Mark

 

[tmz]

I'd rinse the bleached rock a few times and put it in the acid bath for a few hours per Mark's step by step. 48 hours might melt more of it than you want.

Nice thread Mark very helpful.

 

[captain7359]

cully careful with the muratic acid and any magnets from powerheads. I've had a few swell or split after an acid bath. Not sure if there was already a crack and the acid got to the metal or what happened.

 

[Newreeflady]

+1 on acid after the bleach, and hosing down after the acid.

-A