Dead Live Rock...?

[DSlater]

Excellent! Thanks everyone

[Kryptic4L]

Originally Posted by 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".

Acid bathing removes phosphates, and metals. And the bleach bath will remove the organics.

I personally did not have a good time messing Mauritic, I would use vinegar over a weeks time if I did it again.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Kryptic4L

Acid bathing removes phosphates, and metals. And the bleach bath will remove the organics.

I personally did not have a good time messing Mauritic, I would use vinegar over a weeks time if I did it again.

Acid will remove phosphate in the sense that it eats the rock away taking the phosphate that is bound to the calcium carbonate in the rock. However, it isn't likely to take all the phosphate out. A person could start with an acid bath to jump start the cleaning process. A bleach bath following the acid will also dissolve organics on the rock [Edit: Oops, didn't see you wrote that part too]. Acid won't have an affect on nitrate, but the bleach will help with nitrate because it dissolves the organics before they can break down.

Acid isn't something that many people really want to play with though...

[DSlater]

I should also ask what to do with the sand. He's got it all sitting in buckets. Should I bleach or just a good rinse out...? Thanks!

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by DSlater

I should also ask what to do with the sand. He's got it all sitting in buckets. Should I bleach or just a good rinse out...? Thanks!

Honestly, I'd just buy new sand..

[DSlater]

Really - darn. I would love to reuse it. Since the tank is 240 gallons - that's going to be a lot of sand to rebuy. But if there's no way to effectively clean it - then for sure, I'll have to buy more. Seems to be a lot of talk about live vs dry sand. Any thoughts? For my nano tank I bought live sand w/ the live rock but I'm starting to think that might have been a waste of money. The live rock will turn the sand live anyways...