how bout throwing it all in a vat of r/o di water and adding some muriatic acid ..to strip off a layer or so of the organics(phosphates) that have accumulated on the rock....then neutralizing the acid...then powerwashing the rock....you would end up with a clean phosphate free product ???? opinions??
REALLY cooking rock
- Thread starter bassnman11
- Start date
rsteagall
New member
boiling... stripping with acid... baking....If the rock is dead already, it doesn't matter what method you use.
The point is removing organics, but organics aren't just on the surface. I've boiled small chunks of rock before. When doing so, there is definitely a stinchy smell coming from the rock. Boiling clearly penetrates the rock and helps draw out organic material. Heck, you can see it in the water. Even going through a boiling process though, you can't remove 100% of the organics. Thus the need for some sort of curing process.
If its just a small hunk or two that I've used to attach frags, I've just boiled the rock and tossed it into the tank.
The last time I boiled ALOT of rock, I took it to my LFS and let them cure it for about 3 weeks in some empty tanks attached to their gazillion gallon system. So, this may be an option for you.
The point is removing organics, but organics aren't just on the surface. I've boiled small chunks of rock before. When doing so, there is definitely a stinchy smell coming from the rock. Boiling clearly penetrates the rock and helps draw out organic material. Heck, you can see it in the water. Even going through a boiling process though, you can't remove 100% of the organics. Thus the need for some sort of curing process.
If its just a small hunk or two that I've used to attach frags, I've just boiled the rock and tossed it into the tank.
The last time I boiled ALOT of rock, I took it to my LFS and let them cure it for about 3 weeks in some empty tanks attached to their gazillion gallon system. So, this may be an option for you.
i have said for the past 5 years:the bane of today's reef aquarium is the continued use of live rock...
the best tanks i ever saw were in my lfs from 1980-89....using undergravel filters.. covered with coral rubble...and the entire reef structure was built on dead coral skeletons....NO LIVE ROCK !
no nuisance algae...no hitchikers etc...very simple, stable systems that worked for years with low maintenance...i am in the process of locating some of that philippine coral rubble now...perhaps i will setup a tank as mentioned and reinvent an old method of reefkeeping...just look at paul b's tank if you want to see non conventional reefkeeping.....i hope someone will read this and remember the tanks i am referring to...in a place called pets plus in freeport ny....i am only trying to help out by sharing what i know to be a better way...no nasty critics ,please...i also experimented with plenums for years and i believe i have some useful info on how to make them better...and last longer....all this high tech nonsense is not necessary to keep a beautiful reef...as a side note: i am a long time friend of the owner of poly bio marine (Ken)...we have discussed this and many other ideas...as well as reflecting on the way things were...i am trying to cooerce ken into doing an article in fama about some of this....anyway...hopefully the next big wave in reefkeeping will be the elimination of live rock...just like sprung advised everyone to pull their bio-balls in the late eighties....
the best tanks i ever saw were in my lfs from 1980-89....using undergravel filters.. covered with coral rubble...and the entire reef structure was built on dead coral skeletons....NO LIVE ROCK !
no nuisance algae...no hitchikers etc...very simple, stable systems that worked for years with low maintenance...i am in the process of locating some of that philippine coral rubble now...perhaps i will setup a tank as mentioned and reinvent an old method of reefkeeping...just look at paul b's tank if you want to see non conventional reefkeeping.....i hope someone will read this and remember the tanks i am referring to...in a place called pets plus in freeport ny....i am only trying to help out by sharing what i know to be a better way...no nasty critics ,please...i also experimented with plenums for years and i believe i have some useful info on how to make them better...and last longer....all this high tech nonsense is not necessary to keep a beautiful reef...as a side note: i am a long time friend of the owner of poly bio marine (Ken)...we have discussed this and many other ideas...as well as reflecting on the way things were...i am trying to cooerce ken into doing an article in fama about some of this....anyway...hopefully the next big wave in reefkeeping will be the elimination of live rock...just like sprung advised everyone to pull their bio-balls in the late eighties....
too have boiled my rocks for three hours today. . Mind you i was cooking my live rock as Sean described for two months. Everything he said about the detritus shedding is so true. But I still could see some very small patches of algae on parts of the rock. The wafer algae disappeared in the cooking, as well as the halimeda, except the short red algae which, when touched seems feels like a toothbrush and difficult to remove by hand or brush. I assumed that these nuisance algae will still survive the cooking process and just wait for the time when my water parameters are out of wack that they will again come back. So what I wanted was to remove all remnants of these algae once and for all.
As I am going barebottom and still have plenty of things to do (redo circulation, skimming etc, faux sand bed etc.) I think that after the boiling process I would still cook my rocks as Sean suggested till nothing comes out of that rock ( hopefully) but water.
I did this boiling process after I read that some of the members here were reporting algae problems ( the kind that likes clean water and high flows) even after cooking their rocks.
As I am going barebottom and still have plenty of things to do (redo circulation, skimming etc, faux sand bed etc.) I think that after the boiling process I would still cook my rocks as Sean suggested till nothing comes out of that rock ( hopefully) but water.
I did this boiling process after I read that some of the members here were reporting algae problems ( the kind that likes clean water and high flows) even after cooking their rocks.
take a look at some petco fish only tank...u know the kind that uses dead bleached coral skeletons as decorations....u call that live rock ??? i'm talking dead bleached octpus coral,blue ridge,stag horn etc...was what those reefs i saw in the early 80's were built on....NOT LIVE ROCK !!!!....SeanT
The dead coral skeletons i am referring to were not -detritus spewing,phosphate laden,problem algae causing,mantis shrimp and other pest inhabited chunks of calcium carbonate harvested "live" from fiji or elsewhere like the stuff you got in your tank.....got it now ??? think 1970's to 80's dead bleached coral....not even close to live rock....
SEAN t - GO TO : december tank of the month.....scroll down to the picture just below the pic of the guys main tank...it is a tank full of dead coral skeletons like i am referring to....if u think the stuff in that picture is live rock.....i'll sell u some ...cheap....(along with a bridge) LOL !
GOT IT NOW ????
GOT IT NOW ????
Tunguska
New member
You are obviously refering to the old pic here:
Dec. TOTM
What you see there is dead coral skeletons, a.k.a., "baserock," albeit in much nicer shapes than most baserock sold now, which is quarried.
Baserock, when placed in our tanks for long enough, becomes liverock.
The only reason those dead coral skeletons stayed white was the tank owners took them out of the tank and re-bleached them periodically. There is nothing, except sometimes the shape, about those dead coral skeletons of the 80's that we cannot mimic by dunking our liverock in a bleach solution to kill everything on it and stain it white. You now have sterile rock, which will slowly turn back into Live Rock!
tunguska: the dead coral skeletons eventually turned brown,,,then sorta grey with spots of algae here and there where exposed...but we had no wild collected live rock in the tank with it in those days....so if you want to say those dead coral skeletons became bacterially alive...i might agree...but most of the biological filtration was accomplished by the coral rubble/undergravel filters we used...not the ? coral skeletons...
Weatherman
New member
Having had several marine aquariums back in the 70s, Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢d agree. Dead, boiled and bleached coral skeletons are not very effective denitrifying filters.
The standard set up in the 70s was undergravel filters, a bit of lava rock and plastic plants along with dead, boiled and bleached coral skeletons. The buildup of nitrates in those tanks was a major problem.
crazzyreefer
New member
geesh wish most of you actually tried this before giving positive or negative advise...
I have... and will give you some insight...
I have boiled and bleached live rock,
I used a stainless cooker for craw fish, and used 4 pool pucks of chlorine, I boild all the rock in the solution for 30 min, it will be white, as opposed to green, and will even cook off turf algae, at this point you will need to rinse the rock with hose, and then boil in clean water for another 15 min, repeat until you smell no more bleach.
you will need to full cycle the tank, will there be phosphates.. yes but not much, the new algae and bacteria will deplete this rapidly. the tank I run now is BB and had the rock bleached and boiled years ago, it takes a while but it will be live rock eventually.
I have... and will give you some insight...
I have boiled and bleached live rock,
I used a stainless cooker for craw fish, and used 4 pool pucks of chlorine, I boild all the rock in the solution for 30 min, it will be white, as opposed to green, and will even cook off turf algae, at this point you will need to rinse the rock with hose, and then boil in clean water for another 15 min, repeat until you smell no more bleach.
you will need to full cycle the tank, will there be phosphates.. yes but not much, the new algae and bacteria will deplete this rapidly. the tank I run now is BB and had the rock bleached and boiled years ago, it takes a while but it will be live rock eventually.
