Pros & Cons of Cooking Rock

[captbunzo]

I wanted to start a discussion about the pros & cons of cooking rock. I see this mentioned from time to time around here and wanted to hear what others have to say.

Now, as I have never cooked rock and am not a big fan of the concept, I was hoping someone who was on that side of the fence would jump in, define the process of cooking rock, and explain the benefits believed to be found in cooking rock.

And, btw, the purpose of this thread is to illuminate more specifically the concepts around cooking rock so that we may all understand it better - including myself.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Might I explain further for those that are unfamilar with the term "Rock Cooking"

Rock Cooking is when you take your live rock and place it in a bin and with a heater and powerhead for water movement. Then you cover it up so no light can get it. Next, you wait until you have achieved your goal. Lastly, you place it back in your tank. This does not mean that you are baking or boiling your rocks. You are just keeping them in a bin devoid of light.

Some common goals in Rock Cooking are to remove nuisance algae, let the rock leech out nutrients and detritus outside of the rock, and to reduce the nutrients in the water column of the bin's water.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

My humble opinion is that Rock Cooking generally masks the problem. If you are cooking to cure algae, then there is most likely something wrong in the tank, and not with your rock. If you are cooking to prevent a possible tank crash because of leeching nutrients, then there is most likely something wrong with your husbandry. If you are cooking to "clean" the water in the bin, then I can see that. But if you are trying to do all the above, then there are probably very serious problems with your tank, your ability to keep the tank, and you would have to wait an extremely excessive amount of time for there to be absolutely no nutrients left inside of the curing bin.

In short, depending on what you need it for, it can help but is definitely not a cure all.

 

[kpk]

This is from a different thread that I explained cooking in.

Just for everyone's information I didn't mean actually "cooking" the rock. It is a biological process by putting it in the dark and changing the water every week or so give the beneficial bacteria something other than fish crap, left overs etc. so it attacks the detritus in the rock and drives it out. I "cooked" mine for about 4 months everyweek changing all the water, dunking and swishing in the old water to get the loose detritus out. I was getting about a cup at least of crud a week for the first 2 weeks. At the end of "cook" down to just rock sloughing off. talk about coralline growth. After that the phosphates where low and the coralline really loves that. You don't actually kill the live rock. It is actually more alive with beneficial bacteria than straight out of the ocean and without all the crud...

Kyle

I have done it and love it. Gets out phosphates, nitrates etc. The rock I had had been in a nasty neglected system for about 15 years so this was a must. Another problem was my nasty shallow sandbed, but that's a different story.

 

[captbunzo]

Sounds like in your situation, Kyle, with 15 year old rock that had been neglected badly, cooking rock may actually have been a good choice.

And I acknowledge that as I think that cooking rock seems to be really sort of a last case scenerio, somewhat exteme solution to a problem. In most cases, especially with newer rock, I'd say that it is much more likely to just kill off a lot of the good stuff growing on your rock that you DO want in the average reef tank.

Now one thing, Kyle. Your statement:

It is actually more alive with beneficial bacteria than straight out of the ocean and without all the crud...

...seems HIGHLY dubious. Can you provide us with some sort of source for that statement? And even if it is true, what else have you sacrificed in the process?

Anyhow, let me back up and say that in a worst case scenerio, cooking rock might be a solution to deal with badly mistreated rock resulting from bad husbandry and tank design. However, I think in any other cases, especially those dealing with much fresher rocks, there has got to be better solutions.

One part of this is to consider how to avoid getting rock to that point anyhow. But that is largely a discussion on proper flow in a tank, etc.

Also, I wonder why the dark part is really necessary. If your point is to eliminate nitrates in a tank, why not simply perform the same process in a tank with at least minimal lighting, low bioload (no extra feeding), and a good skimmer. That with the weekly water changes and swishing of rock sounds like a great plan.

Anyhow, just some thoughts. Take them for what they are worth.

 

[kpk]

I have to admit that was kind of a stupid statement I had made. What I meant was with this rock cooking it "repopulated" the beneficial bacteria and drove out the excess nutients. A better statement would have been "the rock would have "as much" beneficial bacteria as coming out of the ocean, and less detritus etc."
I don't think I could go as far to cook "brand new" live rock for 4 months, but most definitly for a week or two. Everyone that has gotten a box of live rock knows how much crap ooozes out and I would rather never have that crap in my tank/sand etc.
When I cooked mine I would get out 1-2 cups of solid detritus that smelled like dead fish/ammonia and the water would be totally brown/green. You could smell it when you opened the shop door. No doubt in my mind it works wonders if it really needs to be done. I will agree though better tank husbandry would definitly be better than letting it get like mine was.
To tell the truth my rock looks 10x better, better coralline growth, tons of critters etc than it did when I got it-hair algae etc.

Keep in mind though even though I have cooked I can still get hair algae just as easy as anyone else w/o water changes etc. I run barebottom so maintenance is crucial I.E. siphoning detritus lots of water changing, and wet skimming.

Kyle

 

[VCoo71]

the bacteria will go deep inside the rock and drive out all the accumilated nutrients/detritus

the only thing you do loose is coralline but it will come back quick

weekly dunking and swishing in fresh mixed saltwater is a must!
you will see just how much crud comes out of the rock

a link to seant's original cooking post

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...erpage=25&highlight=cooking rock&pagenumber=2

charlie

 

[chris4693]

My situation is one of change. When I first started I was told this or that and kinda mixed it all in as I built my system. So 14 years ago with Minimal flow, lots of sand, and minimal water changes, I could never rid myself of Algae, that just kept comming back faster and faster.

I hardly ever lost a fish and what soft corals I did have grew like weeds, along with the Algae. So my problem wasn't neccessarly bad husbandry or not taking care of my live stock, like stated above. My problem was years of minimal equipment and knowledge, much like most start out in this expensive hobby.

So finally about a year ago I decided to change my tank and spend some money on my system by upgrading lights, filtration, flow, etc. In this process I decided to go to a Bare Bottom system, I do like the look of sand and I may go back to it at some time, but for now I am have mostly Stony corals and I felt it would be easier to run BB in the main display. Along with getting rid of the old sand I cooked the rock that had been in my system for close to a decade. The rock now looks like it was when it was first cured with alot more Coraline growing on it.

So now my tank looks great, when I clean the glass, my wife doesn't complain of all the Algae, the kids sit and look at it more, they tend to show their friends the new things they see growing. All in all I am completely happy with the way my tank is starting to look. My system still has a long way to go, but over the last yeart it has become a conversation peice instead of an eye sore.

Sometimes you get to a point where you knowledge and checkbook exceed the design of your tank. Sometimes it is easier to start all over, nice and clean. Sometimes it takes a few months of letting your rock rid itself of many years of neglect.

 

[captbunzo]

Thank you for sharing your perspective on the topic, Chris. Very interesting...

 

[jgoelz]

It appears that there is a right and wrong way to cook rock. I purchased some rock that had been "Cooked" for a few months by the previous owner for my tank. Within a couple of weeks the hair algae began growing up from seemingly every pour within the rock. I also I am experiencing bubble algae from this rock. What a frustration that stuff is. This is a new tank with only rock from the cooked source so the algae did not come from anywhere else.

 

[Sk8r]

Mine, already heavily corallined and rinsed in salt, went in without so much as a brush-off: mine was hair algae free after about a month [with cleanup crew] and has been through caulerpa [a hitchhiker, which gave way to bubble, but none of that grows where the coralline is, so it's naturally limited. The list of what was on that rock:
Spionid worms
Pileolaria featherdusters
Phoronid featherdusters
other featherdusters
Chrimia biceps worm
bristleworms
strombus grazer snails
Zebra stomatella snail
sponge pink, yellow, white
isopods
copepods
aiptasia
discosoma neglecta
various discosoma
coralline
valonia
green hair
red macro [unidentified]
pumping xenia

So I'm pretty glad: everything survived the mild cycle, and I'll put up with the pests to get the other hitchhikers, which are absolutely rife at this writing.

 

[captbunzo]

I had a very interesting chat with Chris (chis4693) on the phone last night about cooking rock. Here ae some interesting points from our discussion.

1. One thing we agreed upon was that "cooking rock" is really probably a bad name for the process. I think the term we thought was more appropriate was "re-curing" of your rock. And he and others prefer to do so in a dark environment to accellerate the process.

2. While cooking rock is not necessarily something recommendable for all situations, it can be a great way to reclaim rock that may have become overly clogged up.

3. Youngins in the hobby like me and Travis are lucky as technology, equipment, and knowledge have seriously advanced in the last 15 years of reefkeeping. The availability of good knowledge through the internet and clubs like COMAS is a big factor in this as well.

4. And lastly, while I have never cooked rock myself, I did buy some rock from him last fall which had been thoroughly "re-cured" for a good 4 months or so. And the 20G tank these rocks were put into is doing exceptional. The tank started with 20ish pounds of rock from him and a couple bags (1-2 inches) of dry sand. Now the tank is full of feather dusters, pods, and all sorts of critters.

And that tank has done suprisingly well. Untill last week, the tank was at my office where it didn't get a whole lot of good hunbandry from myself. I did water changes very seldomly (though I should do them more). I fed it more flakes during the day then is probably good as the clowns and dragon goby didn't get any food over the weekend. It has no skimmer and only a Penguin 150 power filter for extra filtration.

And after not having done a water change in an embarrassing 4-5-6 months, I brought the tank to my house last week as part of moving out of my office (new job, woohoo). Didn't change any water, just transported it all.

And a couple days ago I checked the nitrates..... They were strangely low at 7.5 ppm. I had to check the values several times as I didn't really believe it at first. I even used another test. (I normally test with Salifert. I used a Seachem or something test as well to validate the results.)

Anyhow, thought some of that was interesting...

 

[redFishblue]

Question to those who have cooked their rocks before: doesn't the algae come back if their phosphates are not under control?

 

[kpk]

Yes it will come back if everything isn't under control...

 

[inwall75]

Cooking Rock is definately a confusing term. It's an old term from a LONG time ago when they would purposely trigger a bacteria bloom to clean out collected rock. The container would get real nasty and it looked like they were "cooking" mash for moonshine.

 

[MyMonkey]

I can say that I am in the final days of my battle with Hair ALgae. I will first try to Scrub the rocks clean and rid my tank of Phosphates as well as other problematic causes. Although, I would like to avoid the cooking process, I may have no choice in the future.

 

[kpk]

I know one thing. My 1" sandbed didn't help my battle with algae. It was completely full of crap...

Kyle

 

[MyMonkey]

I am approaching the deadline here. I either need to scrub my rocks once more or just go for the "Cooking" method above. Either way, I think I will replace some of my sand bed. It too is full of junk. Any suggestions here?

 

[captbunzo]

MyMonkey: Some questions:

1. What have you done so far to deal with your hair algae problems?
2. What are your Nitrates & Phosphates reading?
3. What brand of tests are you using?
4. What sort of water changes are you doing?
5. What is the source of your water?
6. What sort of methods are you using for Nitrate control? (DSB, RDSB, Water Changes, Vegetable Scrubber (i.e. Chaeto in fuge), etc)
7. What sort of methods are you using for Phosphate control? (Vegetable Scrubber, GFO (PhosBan, Rowaphos, etc), etc)

These are some starting questions to help avoid the major breakdown.

 

[MyMonkey]

1: I have scrubbed the rocks twice. I added Cheato as well as Calurpa to the display. (Have no fuge) I prune it manually using the Melev Method once weekly approximately. I Do once weekly water changes of 5 to 10 gallons. These have been my actions gernally for the last 6 months.

2: Nitrates: Less than 5. Phosphates: .5ish. Varies by month.

3: I use Aquatic Pharmaceuticals for some tests. Phosphates and alkalinity are Seachem I think.

4: 5 gallons weekly or more. Slacking within the last month though. Was traveling often.

5: I use RO/DI. Once my water was smelling nasty I started using some from the LFS about 2 weeks ago.

6: I have implemented the Xenia scrubber as well as Cheato and Calurpa in the display. No DSB. Not sure what a RDSB is honestly.

7: I add Phosban to the Emperor filter.

My emperor filter is nasty. Even after I clean it inside and out algae will build up from the outlet within 24 hours. It will be about 6 inches long by then. Nasty.... My glass is covered with a dusty film of algae within 24 hours as well.

I feed every other day. Varied diet: Thera A Pellet, Cyclopeeze, Boyd's. (Freezedried foods) Frozens consist of Silversides once weekly for the Anemone and the Open brain. As well as Mysis, and I add small nori sheets every other dayish.

Here are my options as of this point:

A: Scrub all rocks and replace half the sand bed. (Very labor intensive and time consuming)

b: Buy a sea hare and pray. (a big one)

c: Use the cooking method for all rock but those with GSP or another soft coral attached. For those, I can scrub them. And replace most of the sand bed.

What do you think?