Its a possible idea, however I have no where to let them dryout without stinking up my place. Unless you have a super non-stinky way of drying them out!

boil em up in some water, that would kill everything lol

..or just put in freshwater, then scrub everything off? then just let em dry.

or maybe i'm way out to lunch

Those are some good ideas, maybe I go the freshwater route. Just a thought, but what would happen to the suspected phosphate in the rocks. Would it not just come out at a later time when the rocks are back in a system, or would it leech out of the rocks in the freshwater?

Yeah, I have this whole idea that it's offensive to buy the Merck/D-D test kit (it's not cheap) after spending the big money on the meter to begin with, but the lack of consistency in my results is something that really troubles/puzzles me. Have you tried taking 3 tests in a row with yours? When I do this I get three different numbers. I've finally figured out that at least one of my cuvets is suspect - if I zero out the meter, then immediately take a reading - I get an "underrange" error. (Consistently.. I tried it about 20 times.) I would expect it to be zero, or at the very least, "not always" underrange. With the other cuvet I can zero it, and get a zero reading. I wonder if the sensor or the LED emitter might have dust on it too but it would be impossible to clean those I think so I kind of hope that's not the case.

Yikes, 500ppm seems for sure too high, I would have backed off the reactors as well! Might need to be upped just ever-so-slightly now just to find the happy medium..

Wow, 65lbs of rock, that's a lot more than I thought there was in there. :neutral:

Speaking of boiling water, have you tried the boiling water trick of GHA removal? I did this in a few spots in my cube tank and it worked like a charm. If only I could do that next to my clams since the clams are now the biggest areas of GHA (their shells). But yeah, hoo yeah, did the boiling water work great in the spots where I did dare to try it :)

honestly I have no idea, maybe keep in freshwater and test for phosphates? or use a phosphate filter? or go the drastic route and boil the rock, that should get anything out, maybe?

it won't be live rock anymore after these treatments.

maybe take out the suspect rock, and see if tank improves, or do tests to see if phosphates go down/?

if you put out some money for even another 50lbs of rock, and/or get a bigger system for more dilution, I bet it would have a major impact

I added another 100lbs of rock to my system about 7 months ago, and i've done about 3-4 water changes since then, and I've never seen any algae

After we had a conversation last time about the meters I did go home and did 3 tests in a row with each culvet. I've gotten consistent results every time. Did you want me to bring my meter to your place and you can see if its the meters?

When I set everything back up I dialed in everything like I still had a stocked tank. It wasn't until January when I realized my error and I was slowly backing it down. I guess I backed it down too quick, or just a bit to far. Maybe by next week it will be back where it should be. When I got 500 the first time, I tested it a second time with another test kit, and at one point I had 580ppm.

I'm just waiting on some water right now, but tonight I'm going to take out a rock, maybe two and start the cooking process. I'm also going to change the aquascape, I need change to keep me thinking that the tank will pull through.

Any thoughts on my lack of coraline growth, both on that rock in the front left of the tank and on the glass?

I'm not sure where I would put more rock, but its definitely something to consider. Where did you add the 100lbs, your display or elsewhere? In your system, how much rock do you have?

If you had some time at some point I would like to take you up on that offer :)

Not sure about the coraline. Maybe it's just being outcompeted? :neutral: