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Dried Live Rock question

kurplunk

kurplunk

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I have a garbage can full of dry live rock. It was covered with algae, gsp, and xenia. Now that the rock is completely dried out what would be the best way to get the dried organic matter off the rock. I was considering filling the can with ro/di and using a brush to scrub the rocks off. Does anyone have experience doing this, or any recomendations? The paramaters in my tank are good, I want to avoid any nitrate, amonia spikes. ???
 
I don't know what your time frame is on adding the rocks to your tank, but I would check out this thread on RC:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=437342

The post in question is about 1/2 the way down, by SeanT.

Mike
 
-Mike thanks. I actually used that thread and process for the first batch of rock. My thinking was that I could cook a batch of rocks prior to the break down of my tank. I could get rid of the algae, and using that batch I could seed the rest that i later was planning on drying out. I just want to get them bone white, not worried about retaining the benifical bacteria.
 
FWIW, I oxycleaned and bleached some dry rock I had. There was a bunch of organic matter on the rocks prior to this.

I just got a couple of 5 gallon buckets, filled with rock and hot water, added bleach, swirled the entire bucket A LOT, and it all just started flaking/peeling away. I repeated this probably about 3-4 times and then did the same with fresh water and de-chlor. After that I laid them out on a towel with a fan blowing over them for about a day and a half. The rocks came out totally white and only a few tiny pieces of the now black organic matter were left.
 
I bleached all the rocks currently in my current tank. http://www.bareefers.org/discussion/index.php?topic=5363.255

I am not sure my process is the technically reccommended process but it worked for me.

Step one. give the rock a good scrubbing with a brush
Step two. soak in a bleach mix (think I did about 10-1 perhaps a little less) for 24 hours
Step three. rinse all of the rock in tap water and scrub again with a brush
Step 4. soak all rock in RODI water for 48hours
Step 5. remove rock and repeat step 2 adding in a bit of decloranator
step 6. Let rock bake in the sun for 24-48 hours
step 7 repeat step 5
step 8 smell rock for distinct bleach smell. If smell is still strong repeat step 5
step 9 add rock to tank

If you are doing this to all of your rock it will likely cycle your tank. If you add it back in small doses my experience is that is should have only a small effect on the cycle.
 
FWIW. I had a temp tank set up that I tied in to my existing system for the express purposes of curing the cleaned rock. I added it in slowly as to not cycle my entire system until i eventually had an entire 65 gallon tank crammed full of rock. I did this over about a 6-8 week timeline so that when I set up the new tank I needed only to use the "clean' rock that was then seeded with the necessary bacteria etc.

Fast forward about 2 1/2 months the rock is beginning to be very well covered in corraline etc.
 
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