reviving dry live rock

[boyer]

So I'm getting ready to start and cycle my 12g tank. A friend of mine told me he has about 100lbs of live rock, but it's been sitting in a milk crate for about 6 months.

My question is can i just rinse the rock off, put it in my tank with some fresh live rock, and just cycle my tank lights off for a month or so? and revive it? If not how to I clean it and use it as base rock?

Thoughts and opinions welcome, I did a search and read about cooking, but that just seems like a lot of work to save some money, and also cost money as well, as I will be getting this stuff for next to nothing.

-Chris

 

[b0bab0ey]

I'm pretty much in the process of doing the exact same thing, so I can tell you how I'm doing it. I rinsed my rocks off real good to clean out anything dead that may still be inside. Once I setup my tank, I dumped a bottle of "BIO-Spira" in to seed the rock, as it's supposed to contain live bacteria. I also put a raw shrimp in the tank to spike the ammonia levels just to be safe. I'm gonna wait about a month, get my calcium levels up and then add 5-10lbs of live rock w/coralline algae. I'm keeping my lights off till then.

I've checked with some knowledgeable people and they agree this should work. But they stressed to me that I'm going to have to be patient, as it will take several months for the bacteria to spread to all of the rocks. They also warned me to expect some undesirable algae issues here and there as the tank goes through it's long cycle.

Btw, you did mean a 120g tank (not a 12g) right?

 

[HanoverFist]

Yep, give it a good good rinse and inspection. If you want you can use vinegar and water (acts as a very mild acid solution), then be sure to rinse well. Use RO/DI water for final rinses if you can. Then just put with some fresh LR and it will eventually re-become LR.

 

[cveverly]

I would bleach the rock with a mixture of 1 part bleach to 5 parts water. Soak a couple hours and rinse well. After that give it a bath in a solution of muriatic acid. Use about ten parts water to one part acid for about an hour. Rinse well and let air dry for a couple days. Soak in a container of RO water and let dry again. The rock is now ready to be seeded.

This process will kill anything living on the rock and then dissolve any organics that may cause phosphates.

Do this outside in a well ventilated area and use rubber gloves.

 

[JTR0510]

scrub rock with vinegar water solution. as your cleaning dip in RO water between scrubs to get all the gunk out. Then add to aquarium or container with water circulation and add some live rock or live sand to start the cycling. Also some dead shrimp

 

[boyer]

cool thanks for the feed back, this is a 12gallon, im not going to use all 100lbs, just what I need to make my aquascape and probably sell the rest for a 1$ a lb or something. i think ill do the bleach and water scrub and rinse then the acid dip. after its been rinsed and all just toss it in my tank with some live rock and cycle it huh? its been about 6 years since my last reef tank.

 

[preef]

I also acquired some free dried live rock. I kept it in my basement for years before I started my tank. I soaked it in a bleach solution for several days. I then soaked the pieces for about a week. I changed the water daily and added a chlorine neutralizer each time I changed the water.

 

[zaheda]

I have taken some dead rock and just added with some live rock, that would seed the rock well over time.

 

[boyer]

so i did some more research on the live rock im getting and i was way off, turns out its been out of water for only about a week or so, he made it sound like it came offline for months. I'm thinking of just rinsing it off in some fresh RO water with my power head and tossing it in my tank with a few fresh pieces of LR and cycling, any comments?