Shutting down tank, but keeping LR. What to do?

[banditpowdercoat]

So I am shutting my tank down for maybe a year+. Relocating and waiting till my life settles a bit. I want to keep most of my LR. What do I do to make it Base rock? Can I just leave it outside for a while on a tarp? Or should I cook it in tank when all livestock is sold?

[jason604]

I'm about to bleach and muriatic acid wash my rocks. I'll let u no how it goes

[toytech]

I did the same thing when I moved , took all my rock and bleached it in 5 gallon pails , then soaked in water , then let it dry in the sun which breaks down the bleach . When I set up a tank a year latter I cured the rock in bins with some live rock , got some phosphate leaching but it cleared up in less than 2 months .

[kien]

definitely a good idea to acid burn or bleach it after it has been left to rot. It's called live rock for a reason and if left out of water that "live" stuff will die and rot. You'll want to do something to remove that rot.

[banditpowdercoat]

So just soak in bleach and water? IF I sell all inhabitants, could I just bleach the tank adn do it in tank before shut down? If so, how much? 150 display, but 220 total gallon of water

[mikellini]

Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat

So just soak in bleach and water? IF I sell all inhabitants, could I just bleach the tank adn do it in tank before shut down? If so, how much? 150 display, but 220 total gallon of water

I had great success just using RODI and the sun. If you have the time, this is the best way to avoid chemicals and still leach phosphates/metals from the rock, and has the advantage of not losing any mass (like you would with an acid bath).

To start, I placed the rock in a large rubbermaid of RODI for about 3 days. Lots of circulation. After 3 days it was pretty ripe, rinsed/scrubbed the rock in buckets of RODI and left in the sun to dry. Repeated this about 3 times and the water was clear by the third time, so I just started doing water changes every three days. No smell and no measurable phosphates two weeks later, nice clean rock!