Neptune Aquatics

Just bought new dead live rock. Best way to clean for pests and misc things?

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POOLSCAPES

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I pick up some dry dead rock. I want to start cycling it to make it live again.
Was wondering the best process to use to kill any bad things on the rock that might be there.
Please can you give me some advice. Thank you Joe
 
Muriatic acid. Just google search. Plenty of directions out there. 3% solution an soak until it stops foaming. Rinse, soak in water. Use. Scrub off what you can first. Wear gloves and goggles. Add acid to water. Don't add water to acid.
 
aqua-nut said:
Just not at the same time with acid!

After the acid is all rinsed off, then it's time for bleach.

Be VERY careful with Muriatic acid. It's strong enough to cause damage to you and anything it's splashed on.
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Yes true. bleach and acid together is not a good idea.
Personally, I would bleach it overnight with like one or two cups of bleach to a gallon first. then wash real good with a strong garden hose nozzle on the driveway or someplace like that. then have a look at the rock and see if you need any more cleaning. Muratic acid dissolves the rock. It will remove calcium based stuff like tube worm shells and coral skeleton.(live rock) . Acid can "freshen" up the surface of the rock.
 
JAR said:
Yes true. bleach and acid together is not a good idea.
Personally, I would bleach it overnight with like one or two cups of bleach to a gallon first. then wash real good with a strong garden hose nozzle on the driveway or someplace like that. then have a look at the rock and see if you need any more cleaning. Muratic acid dissolves the rock. It will remove calcium based stuff like tube worm shells and coral skeleton.(live rock) . Acid can "freshen" up the surface of the rock.
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I'm learning from this thread, since I recently removed a couple of rocks from my tank that had hard-to-remove algae. I soaked them in a strong bleach solution for about a week, then blasted them with the hose nozzle, as Jon suggested. I left them out in the sun over the weekend, and they have almost no odor of bleach remaining. Just to be sure, I rinsed them a few more times. But the tubes from those darn vermetid snails remain. Sounds like I might need to try a brief dip in muriatic acid to dissolve those tubes.
 
Thank you everyone. I did a strong dip of muriatic acid. I will do bleach on Monday and Tuesday. I miss the old house. Would not have to worry about muriatic ruining the finish of the concrete. I believe I am finish. I might have to due some more a second time. The muriatic was getting weaker on the five batch. Thanks again.
 
Oh yeah just to mention since we're talking safety and all that with the various chemicals, always do your chemical nuking outside, last thing you want is some sort of palythoas that were on the rock getting dissolved and some how aerosolized then inhaling those lovely toxins.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Oh yeah just to mention since we're talking safety and all that with the various chemicals, always do your chemical nuking outside, last thing you want is some sort of palythoas that were on the rock getting dissolved and some how aerosolized then inhaling those lovely toxins.
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Good point! I'll never forget the guy in Ohio that was scrubbing old rock in his basement utility sink. It had been in a bucket for months, so he didn't think anything was on it. The steam went up through the vent where his family was eating dinner. His wife and kids were in the hospital for a few days, he was in intensive care for over a week and in the hospital for a month. Inhaling that stuff is no joke.

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Not sure what the point is of BOTH acid + chlorine.
I tend to think acid is best, because beyond killing whatever is there, it dissolves a bit of rock,
and opens up the pores. Just be careful not to over-do it.
 
rygh said:
Not sure what the point is of BOTH acid + chlorine.
I tend to think acid is best, because beyond killing whatever is there, it dissolves a bit of rock,
and opens up the pores. Just be careful not to over-do it.
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I am not a chemist but I have noticed that the acid does not break down the organics very well. It zaps the rock really well but I noticed that if I bleach first, everything turns as white as it will ever get and it breaks down the dead animals and plants to something that washes off easily. If I need to dissolve some live rock or calcium based stuff like barnacles or tube worm shells the acid does a real number on it. I would not normally put acid on the rock. I like to use bleach. Granted there is a lot of satisfaction watching the rock bubble away with the acid though :).
 
Are there any reasons other than aesthetics that one would want to burn tube worm shells, and other calcifications off their rock?
 
tube "worms" (they're actually snails) can puncture your hand with relatively little effort. I've had at least one "I could have died because of something really stupid" moments involving one of those f-ers go through the back of my hand... then infection set in... at which point I didn't realize how serious it could be and "walked it off" until my hand looked like a boxing glove in which case yeah.. :D
 
I've started using a pair of shoulder length heavy nitrile gloves when working with my tank. I handled some frogspawn in my old tank with bare hands and a tiny cut I hadn't noticed. I felt an odd "tingle" handling the froggie and then got lightheaded afterwards. Yeah I am a lot more careful now. Safety goggles when handling corals too.

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If you have time (a few weeks), I would also recommend dosing Lanthanum Phosphate to a tub of the rock and RO/DI water. The Lanthanum binds to phosphate and precipitates the phosphate from the water. I did this after a muriatic acid bath.

I originally purchased BRS Pukani, which is beautiful stuff, but pulled straight from the ocean and then left to dry...I mean, how else did I have all that macro algae and dead crabs stuck in the rock? This type of rock really needs to be treated.

-Mark
 
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