How do I properly clean live rock

[FishyFishy!]

I just did this with my rock. Worked wonders! What sized bins do you have?

Here is what I did. I made two 40 gallon garbage bins into my rock holders. I put a drain in the bottom so that I could quickly and safely drain after each cycle.

Soaked rocks in a bleach bath for 24 hours. I used 2 gallons of bleach in each bin, and the live rock was 3/4 of the bin. Not sure what the ratio would have been.

Drained bleach mix. Pressure washed all the rock. Put back in the bins and filled with water and poured a medium sized bottle of prime into the buckets for dechlorination. Let soak for 24 hours.

Then came the acid bath. I used a total of 2 gallons of muriatic acid. Remember....NEVER add water to acid. Always add acid to water!!!

So I filled the bins with water, and poured 1/2 gallon of acid into each bin....extremely carefully. The reaction was instant. I waited until the major foaming stopped, and added the second jug to the bins. I then let the mixture sit for about 4-5 hours.

Then I added a crap load of baking soda to neutralize the acid. I let that sit for about 20 minutes. Then I drained the bins, and powerwashed all the rock again.

I then filled the bins with RO water, and let the rocks soak for another 24 hours. After that I removed the rock and placed it all on a tarp, and let it sun dry for a week.

After this process, I was left with really nice clean, white rock. Worked well for me.

Please remember to wear gloves, eye protection and a resperator when you're doing the acid. I wore a regular paint respirator and at one point could still feel burning in my lungs. Its nasty stuff and needs to be handled extremely carefully.

Best of luck!