Nuking a rock

mpderksen

New member
Xenia has spread from its island to my main structure. I'm going to pull, and clean this rock....
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But then it gets tricky. How do I pull, and clean these rocks that are getting over taken, without harming the rest of the corals? The encrusting Monti is one of my favorites...
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I haven't done it, because I have no rapidly spreading coral, but what I'd probably try would be to take the rock, pick off as much as you physically can, then do some sort of chemical treatment very carefully with a syringe on the rock, avoiding your valued corals. I've done this very thing with algae before with good results. I'm not sure what the best chemical would be to use. Ideas that pop into my head are vinegar or perhaps even boiling water? maybe boiling vinegar if you wanted (joking on that one). Then rinse in a separate bowl of tank water before replacing in the tank.
 
Take the rock out. Get as much off as you can with wire cutters, bone cutters, wire brush or whatever you have. Wear eye protection just in case (good habit to be in). Put it back in a bucket of water for a while so the other "good" coral can catch a breath. Take it back out and towel off the bad areas so that they are decently dry (not soaking wet). Sprinkle dry kalk over the bad areas until it is coated like a powdered donut - you can also mix up a really thick paste of kalk (like toothpaste consistency) and wipe it on with a brush. Let this sit for 5-10 minute to harden or cure - it does not really cure, but you know what I mean. Put it back in the tank with all of the flow pumps turned off so that the kalk mixture does not blow around - leave the return pump on. The next morning you should be safe to turn the flow pumps back on. For really stubborn stuff, you might have to do this more than once - don't wait too long if you see it coming back.

Other than that, break the good corals off the rock, mount them somewhere else and "cook" the nasty rock in a bucket of saltwater for a few months.
 
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Not sure if this will work for you. I had mushrooms and palys that I wanted to eradicate without hurting my encrusted corals. I mixed tank water with talk to make as highly saturated as possible. I dipped the rock up to the base of the corals I was trying to protect. Held it for 10 minutes or so. It melted to stuff I didn't want. Just make sure it doesn't hit the coral. Not sure how long you are willing to expose the coral to the air.
 
Take the rock out. Get as much off as you can with wire cutters, bone cutters, wire brush or whatever you have. Wear eye protection just in case (good habit to be in). Put it back in a bucket of water for a while so the other "good" coral can catch a breath. Take it back out and towel off the bad areas so that they are decently dry (not soaking wet). Sprinkle dry kalk over the bad areas until it is coated like a powdered donut - you can also mix up a really thick paste of kalk (like toothpaste consistency) and wipe it on with a brush. Let this sit for 5-10 minute to harden or cure - it does not really cure, but you know what I mean. Put it back in the tank with all of the flow pumps turned off so that the kalk mixture does not blow around - leave the return pump on. The next morning you should be safe to turn the flow pumps back on. For really stubborn stuff, you might have to do this more than once - don't wait too long if you see it coming back.

Other than that, break the good corals off the rock, mount them somewhere else and "cook" the nasty rock in a bucket of saltwater for a few months.


I guess Kalk is going to be cheaper then the amount of epoxy I'd need to cover everything. Won't I get a HUGE pH spike? Maybe I use my 20g QT?
 
That is why you gotta turn the pumps off... let it cake up. QT will work too as long as the pumps are off in there too.
 
Nuking it with Kelk will work, I have also had decent luck picking at it with my fingernail and peeling it up from The Rock in its entirety

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On the rock where there's nothing I want to save, vinegar soak? Muriatic acid is easy, but seems like overkill. Gonna do these a few at a time each week.
 
"Cook" it in a bucket of water with a powerhead. It will take a few months, but it will be phosphate and disease free and ready to contribute in a positive way to the tank with the bacteria and micro creatures taking care of the gunk. Acid or vinegar can kill some stuff, but then it can take a long time in the tank to unbind the phosphate and get all of the dead materials out of the rock and repopulate with beneficial fauna.

Dry and dead rock is no bargain that can have all kinds of unintended consequences on your tank for a year or more, so don't kill already good rock.
 
I think Muriatic acid would torch away all the organics. And if I do a small % of rock at a time, it would reseed when I put it back, right?
I'm concerned about doing it, though, based on your comment. I can't remove all the rock with Xenia for that long. Which means it continues to spread while the first batch is cooking.
 
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