How long should I boil live rock for?
 

So I purchased some live rock that had aiptasia on it. I put it in my brother's tank and the aiptasia exploded! Its every where (sorry Corey). So I have approximately 40 lbs of live rock covered with aiptasia that I have decided I'm going to boil to get rid of them. (I've got another 40 lbs of pest free live rock that I will use to seed the boiled rock for my tank start up). So my question is, how long should I leave my rocks in the boiling water? (I know about the hazards of boiling corals such as zoa's, the only thing on the rocks is aiptasia and a few zenias). Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thank-you.

I would hazard a guess that after 10 seconds, anything on the surface would be dead

But what about those sneaky ones deep in the crevices of the rock?

Well longer would be better, but why not just leave it outside for a while? A week say, give it a rinse then use your dead rock?

Because I'm really impatient :wink:

(and I love the smell of boiling rock...it really reeks!)

dying xenia smells so bad! i wouldnt do it.

Too late, its all done and now I've got to air out the house, but its not so bad, the smell is almost gone (had the windows all open before I started and the exhaust fan over the range is going full, plus another fan pushing the smell out the window). Now I've got half green zombie looking rock in my tank... BUT NO AIPTASIAS!!!! :mrgreen:

did you take pictures? I want to see :lol:

I'll take some when I get home tonight

I would not have done that if I were you. Chances are you killed off a good portion of the aerobic and anaerobic bacteria on the live rock. This will cause the rock to leech a lot of ammonia and phosphate.

Now that it is done, I wouldn't put that rock into any tank for a long time. I would put it in a tub and "cook" it (does not involve the stove!) for several weeks so it can leech those nasties somewhere safe before introducing it back into a tank where it can then be seeded.

+^^!!
Unless you are able to do it in your tank, with no lives stocks, none.

You need to closely monitor your tank's parameters the next few weeks, even couple of months. I wouldn't put any of your good live rocks in there with the boiled ones yet, until most of the nitrates, etc, have been leached out and testings shows that they are near or close to finishing the cycle.

Good luck.

Was wondering about why the rocks were litterally boiled. But then there are a heck of a lot of ways to get rid of apastias, half of which don't involve killing everything on the rock.

It was either boiling or a vinegar bath (the vinegar probably would have smelled better, but I didnt have enough). I wanted to make sure I got them all (there were a lot... hundreds... maybe more, the move really stressed them and they spread so fast). With my luck, leaving them outside for a week one or two would survive, so I thought better safe than have them come back. I have read so many posts about people having them and not being able to get rid of them, and the majority of people said that if they had to do it over again, they would start from scratch (at least thats how I interpreted the posts and threads that I have read). I really didn't want to regret it later when the tank is all set up and established.

I used Aiptasia X on my tank, it did a great job at first. Killed all of them first try, but they musy have released a bunch of spores while dieing, I now have 10 times more then I had before. Pretty frustrating.

I would have done a vinegar bath before boiling. At least the anaerobic bacteria would have survived, so the organic leech from the rock wouldn't take so long. You're going to essentially be starting with "dry" base rock that still needs to leech.

I'm ok with that, it's kind of what I expected and I was prepared for it before hand, so it's no suprise.

I've boiled lots of live rock and have had no problems at all. I just let it sit (cook) in RO water afterwards. I just did'nt put it all in at once. Every two weeks I would grab a peice and rinse it really good with RO water and put it in the tank and do so every two weeks until all the rock was back in. No problems and within a month the rock is once again full of life.

Anyone ever try microwaving live rock?

This thread actually got me thinking about BBQing live rock actually. Probably less messy, smelly and easy cleanup?

I just bleached a bunch of rock... never looked cleaner.. no biological content left in it.. i rinsed out and let it dry out in the sun for a couple days then added it to a new tank with a couple good live pieces... the rocks are crawling pods and feather dusters are starting to grow.. no ill effects

The water you used must have been like seafood stew from hell !

some photos of the green rocks, for some reason one of these ones didnt turn green (I dont think it had any coraline on it)

Attachment 8162

I had a few more pictures, but I couldn't upload them, the greenest rock coincedently was the one with the most aiptasia on it.

A day or two in the sun will get rid of the green and turn the rock white again.