With the border anything is possible. sometime you are lucky sometimes you are not.

man...when i brought my aquapod and a bunch of gear up from the US i had to explain what a friggin aquarium was.

BorderGuard:"what is in there?"
Me: "it's an aquarium, lights, a couple of pumps."
BG: "a what?"
M: "an aquarium."
BG: "huh?"
M: "an aquarium...for fish."
BG: "what?"
M: "it's a glass box."

i wonder if i would need some certificate or other piece of paper saying that it was legally harvested liverock...

Ok, so I bought the rock. About 300 lbs. It had all sorts of stuff growing on it. It looked like hair algae, and aptaisia. I've put it all into a large tupperware container and started to cook it. I have a heater and two powerheads in there. I plan on scrubbing it and doing 100% water changes every week.

I have some questions.

1. What temp should I have it at?
2. What salinity?
3. Anything else I should be doing?
4. How do I get my wife to forgive me for the smell in the garage?

:biggrin:As far as the first 3 points goe ithink the same as what you want in your tank. as far as #4 you may have to do a lot of butt kissing and flower givin.

1. and 2. People have experimented with both higher and lower temps and hypo/hyper salinity when rock cooking. The accounts I've read seem to suggest that the LR is pretty resilient to reasonable swings both ways. Personally, I keep the both temperature and salinity slightly lower than my display tank to save a bit of $ on both salt and electricity and my LR has emerged fine.

3. I also put the tubs on top of a sheet of insulating foam along with the top on to further conserve heat. Lastly, when doing water changes try to swish the water and rocks around and/or give them a good blast with a powerhead to help dislodge more of the crap.

4. It'll stop smelling after a few days to a week. Cured/cooked live rock doesn't smell at all.

Will the cooking kill everything but the bactieria? I'm just starting and I don't want to fill my tank with problem rock.

The cooking should kill everything but the good bacteria.

How can I tell if I still have the good bactieria?