Restoring Live Rock. What is the procedure?

[mbrady]

Six months ago I broke down my 90 gallon tank and stored the live rock (100 lbs.) in a Rubbermaid 40 gallon container. The container is filled with saltwater and has a mag 7 power head for circulation and an air hose. It has been covered for all that time. Periodically I throw some purple up in it. The tank had been neglected for a while and the rock had green long hair algae growing all over it. I scrubbed all the algae off prior to putting it into the Rubbermaid container.
I am now setting up a 120 gallon tank and want to reuse the 100lbs of Live Rock. What steps do I need to follow to have a successful restart?

 

[AcroNewbie]

I would say the first step in knowing whether or not its still "live", pick it up out of the water and smell it, if it smells rotten/stinks then its no longer live and requires extensive cleaning and cycling procedures.

If it doesnt smell bad test it by adding some ammonia into the container and test for ammonia nitrite and nitrate, it should decompose to nitrate pretty quickly if it is still live, if not then again, a cycle and cleaning is needed. "quickly as in within hours.

Hopefully someone with more experience with this topic can chime in.

 

[Reel North]

You are going to want to cook it and get those phosphates out. The rock is loaded the rock with po4 (thus the hair algae). I cooked mine, and when I began, the bin had po4 levels of 0.57. It dropped to undetectable by the end.

 

[moondoggy4]

Cook=Light Deprivation

 

[Reel North]

Yes. Not cook in the oven lol.

If you have high phos in the rock you will always have algae problems