Dead Live Rock...?

[Myka]

Cooking the rock is exactly what I would do. "Cooking" live rock simply refers to leeching the "dead material" aka nutrients out of the rock - primarily phosphate and nitrate. The first step in "cooking" is to "cure/cycle" the rock. This rock will cycle. All the dead matter on and in the rock will be partially decayed and will continue to decay once it gets wet again and will result in ammonia. The amount of ammonia produced directly relates to the amount of nitrate that will result. Since there is no anaerobic denitrifying bacteria left within the rock the rock will not be able to process any nitrate for quite some time (several months).

Once the rock has cycled (no more ammonia present) I would add a few pieces of live rock (the more the better) to seed it. The new live rock will probably produce another small cycle. I wouldn't add the new live rock until the dry rock has cycled because ammonia over 1 ppm will be detrimental to most beneficial life on the rock that you are trying to introduce, and ammonia over 2 ppm is quite deadly to most life on the rocks.

I am definitely in favor of acid bathing algae covered rock, but I don't see any reason to acid bath dry rock. Acid will not remove nitrate or phosphate and dead rock will be chock full of both. I also see no reason to add MB7 as the decaying matter from both the dry rock and the new live rock will produce all the nitrifying bacteria you will need.

Check the link in my signature for details on "cooking".