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is skimmer necessary to cure dry rocks & sand?

I used to love Seachem Pond Prime when I was doing fresh, but since I started doing salt, I never had to dechlor water, I started with RODI on day one :)
 
Reviving an old thread... I have about 20 lbs dead rock from my tank crash, which has been dried indoors for almost 3 years. I want to reintroduce into my established reef, but I know there is probably a lot of dead stuff and phosphates in it. Recommend long cure with fresh salt water changes, powerhead, heater with water changes, or bleach, or muratic acid? I'm assuming muratic acid is the most effective and fastest. Do I still need to cure after acid bath, or just reintroduce after several good rinses?
 
Well you don't NEED to cure it, but if the rock is wiped clean you'll definitely want to slowly reintroduce rock (as a percentage of your total rock volume) simply because there's no bacteria on it so it may cause a mini (more major) cycle.

FYI muratic acid will break down the calcium bonds on the rock, it won't magically melt all dead organic stuff on it.
 
To me "curing" live rock means letting it soak so all the dead stuff decays off of it. You change the (tap) water to get rid of the dirty water.

You are just reducing the organic crap on it that WILL decay. You just want it to decay somewhere other than in your tank.

V
 
Vincerama2 said:
To me "curing" live rock means letting it soak so all the dead stuff decays off of it. You change the (tap) water to get rid of the dirty water.

You are just reducing the organic crap on it that WILL decay. You just want it to decay somewhere other than in your tank.

V
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In addition to allowing the organic matter to decay I would also add that you are trying to kill any pest organisms. The bleach will effectively do this.
 
You don't want to soak rock you are going to put into the tank using tap water. Tap water contains all sorts of contaminates that could potentially soak into the rock and leach out when it's actually in the tank.

Use your tank water change water to do water changes (say that 5 times fast), in the curing container. You are not so much worried about nitrates but ammonia.


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Thanks all for the info. I will bleach and soak/rinse a few times in RO/DI. Would sitting in bleach longer than 24 hours be too much? Maybe 2-3 days?
 
I would let the rock dry after rinsing with RO/DI. Sodium hypochlorite (bleach) is converted to sodium chloride when the water evaporates. Soaking in more fresh water will just dillute the bleach and slow the conversion of bleach to sodium chloride.

Bleach for more than 24 hours probaby won't do anything more for you. Everything should be good and dead by then.
 
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