Rock to start up the p650

[Kirino]

Intro: So a while back I bought a second hand p650. After spending a lot of time tweaking it and getting equipment, I'm considering starting it up. I did add (only) water before, but had to empty it because of circumstances.

Story: So now I have two sets of rocks:
- very old coral rock from my old man, that have been in the garden for at least 15 years
- former live rock from someone who quit the hobby. I have to say former, because I killed it all with bleach after finding out it had Aiptasia on it and the fish that came with it had Ich. Didn't feel like risking any of that stuff ever making it into my tank.

Now you can imagine my issues here:
- I've been cleaning the old rock for weeks, if not months (rinsing in water, garden hose, pressure washer, leaving it in a barrel to soak with a pump for a week and repeat the rinsing, pressure washing and so on). Somehow there is still dirt coming out of these things, but after repeating the mentioned process weekly it has been reduced to almost nothing (the dirt coming out). These rocks were also leaching PO4 like crazy, but this is now down to 1 mg/l. No ammonia here.
- The bleached rock has no PO4, but it was giving insane ammonia readings even after bleaching for a week, dried in the sun for a week, soaking in regular water for a week, pressure washing and more soaking (with a pump). This is now down to 1 mg/l as well after more of the above.

Question: Honestly I think I need to be patient and keep up the process of getting these rocks clean(er), but what do you guys think? At what point can I even remotely consider using these rocks? Values at 0? Is some PO4 fine? I do realize it's probably better to start clean, but I have tons of these rocks on hand so I'd like to use them. Mostly would like to use the 'old' rocks.

Secondary Question: you need ammonia to start up right, could just add one of the 'ammonia' rocks? Yea probably a bad idea, who knows what else would leach out. Honestly I'm considering tossing the bleached rocks in bleach again. What do you think.

 

[griss]

Had similar situations.

1. For the bleached rock, I did the same thing. Put it in a tub with bleach, ran that for a while, cleaned the rock and repeated the process a couple times. Then, I added to a tub with dechlorinator and all the chlorine and ammonia are gone.

2. For my rock from one of my previous tanks that was chock full of PO4, I put it in a Brute trashcan with just a heater and powerhead (no light at all) for a couple years. It was still leaching PO4. So, I added a GFO reactor to that Brute and within a month or two, it was no longer leaching PO4.

IMO, I would use a dechlorinator on the bleached rock and GFO on the rock leaching PO4.

I'd be hesitant to use the bleached rock as it is today. If it's still got ammonia, who knows what else it might have from the bleach such as heavy metals, etc.

Using this will remove chlorine, chloramines and heavy metals.

 

[reefing102]

I agree with griss. I would only add? If it’s true ocean rock and did also sit outside for that long, I don’t think it’ll ever get 100% clean. True rock has so many crevices and so porous that it’ll hold a lot of dirt and old detritus

 

[Kirino]

Thx for the replies, I'll look into the GFO and not use the bleached rock for now. I guess I might have to look at just buying new rocks too. It's true rock so the crevices are endless. Hence so is probably whatever is in there

 

[griss]

If you're interested in real live rock, I bought some from KP Aquatics a couple years back and is was (and still is) awesome.

People have also had great results with rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater and Gulf Live Rock.