Cleaning live rock and sand
 

If I rinse live rock and sand in fresh water (same temp), will that kill the bacteria and cause a cycle?

I am resetting a tank, and would like to clean the rock and sand a bit, before rearranging it. The sand is actually pretty clean (been vacuuming it), am more concerned about the live rock.

Fresh water, or fresh salt water?

Fresh water, from the tap. Then I could rinse it more thoroughly in the sink.

Yes, fresh water will kill off the bacteria and cause a cycle.

OK, thanks, guess I better not do that then. Means I will have to wait for a water change and save a couple buckets of old salt water.

First of all, I appologise if I highjaked this thread but I need some info about my rocks. I have about 90Lbs of live rocks in my current tank, they have been in there for about 3 years but they look that they need some cleaning and they carry some aptasia and some mojanos as well. I am wondering if I take few rocks at time and scrubbed them in salk water to get all the dirt off of them would be a good idea? did anyone try that before? any suggestion would appreciated. Thanks.

Depending on the size of your system, you can add the sand back in a few lbs each week.

Thats what ive always done in the past. I've just put the water change water in a tote on the kitchen counter (hubby not such a fan...lol) and scrubbed it with a toothbrush. I've never experienced any kind of spike or noticed any interruption in my tank whatsoever.

If you want info on the proper way of "cleaning" your live rock, user Myka has a great thread on here on curing and cooking live rock. Takes more time than just scrubbing, but way better way of doing it...

Yes, have read that before. However, I am trying to avoid curing and cooking the live rock.

This is rock that is already in this same tank. I just want to rearrange it. And since I am moving it around anyway, wanted to brush and rinse in off a bit to try and clean it more. But I don't want to cause a cycle, or at least not a major one. There are fish and corals in the tank, too.