Easto, if that is your pukani after your acid bath then you did not do it long enough my friend. All that dark crud should bbe gone.

I figured that much. I was nervous that it was possible to leave it in too long so I took it out within 10 minutes. My goal was to get rid of all the crud off the rocks so I can cycle them in my tank.

It's way too cold out now to be screwing around with water outside.

Best thing to do now? Cure it in a container in the basement?

I guess other people can learn from this :D

You might want to wait for temperatures to rise (February?) and re-acid bath. That's going to take months to cycle IMO.

Bblinks is dead on: "Acid dipping is necessary due to the left over organics in the rock which will cause a phosphate spike even long after the tank has been cycled."

Thanks for clarifying ! So is the acid bath used to speed up the cycling process and for a new tank setup can I simply drop the rock in the empty tank with some live rock for seeding a wait a month or two ? Sounds like both steps are required ?

What's the name of the acid you use ?

Arghh.....months to cycle? What connection does po4 have to the nitrogen cycle?

No offense but I don't agree with this at all..... seems to me people are getting scared into doing this process a lot more lately with poor information so much to the poont where now were saying it has to be done or the tank is doomed to live a never ending cycle lol if this is the case then why is my tank and others running with 100% pukani and no acid bath and no curing....and as of my Sunday test just past still no no3 or po4?

I keep asking this yet those who like to argue it don't answer lol

Stripping the rock of its po4 layer will help with your po4 battle no doubt about it , no3 does not bind it is 100% soluable. So there's only so much po4 in the rock , whether you export it now or later doesn't mean you won't have po4 issues though lol a lot will come down to how your setup and how you export po4 On any given day.

A person can cure the Dickinson out of the rock and still have huge po4 issues , the same way a guy using all liverock can ;)

Simply because.....po4 does not end on the stone , it's imported and exported daily and always will as this is a closed system .

I do get a good chuckle watching all this though so continue on :)

Basically if I don't change out my gfo reactor I will see a cycle?

Seems odd....

Yah agreed reefwars. Easto if you have any questions about the rock why dont you talk to Eli. He knows that stuff really well. Eli's tank is pretty friggin sweet and he never did the bleach or acid

Muriatic acid. Available in concentration from most pool/spa stores.