Cooking and Curing Rock....

[hfp75]

Cooking:

Its in a Rubbermaid with some bleach just resting...

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps854bd985.jpg

Curing:

Originally Posted by asylumdown

just curious, why did you do the acid first? I sort of always thought the bleach would be the first step, but now that I think about it I realize I don't have an explanation for why I always thought that lol.

Well I did some reading and the order doesn't seem to matter... there are opinions both ways but I found nothing concrete to make me do it either way. I had the acid, so I did that first.

---------------

Well, update, the curing rock really, REALLY stunk for a few days and when I took off the black garbage bag, this is what I saw... weird eh? (anyone know what that white stuff is?)

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps53432d88.jpg

I don't now what the white film on the top was but it stank - so I scooped it all out and dumped it.... I took out all the rock (shook it all off, and tried to clean it a bit), it was dark grey in color with some slime (algae) still on it....

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps69b68446.jpg

Then I replaced the water with some fresher tank water (did a water change) & put the rocks, power-head, heater and air hose back in....

Couple of more days and we will see what happens... it is still in the dark, to hopefully kill any algae on it and not provide light for more to grow. In the mean time if I can continue with the water changes I might be able to get rid of the NO3 and PO4.

Obviously by the smell there is die off happening and if I dont have enough O2 it is the anaerobic bacteria doing the bulk of the work creating the terrible smell..... don't know if its the die off or anaerobic bacteria .... maybe both

[asylumdown]

why is there so much die-off? Wasn't this rock live from a tank? Did it spend too much time out of water?

And that crap on the top looks like a very, very serious case of what develops on the surface of ponds when they've got a water fall and too many dissolved organic compounds. Was it foamy or was is gelatinous?

If it was gelatinous, it was probably a biofilm of bacteria, if t's foamy, it's DOC froth, much like the foam that collects in your skimmer cup. In either case, a strong indication of decomposition

[asylumdown]

PS, you're going through all sorts of trouble sterilizing and preparing a bunch of other rock, why not do the same with this stuff? Aren't you just risking introducing pest algae to your pristinely cleaned new rock when you put them in a tank with this stuff?

[hfp75]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

why is there so much die-off? Wasn't this rock live from a tank? Did it spend too much time out of water?

It was from a tank but it sat outside for a few hours before I got it so there is going to be a lot of die off.

Originally Posted by Wheelman76

That's what I was thinking , even just adding water from your tank to the rock can introduce spores of all kinds of different things.

My tank is pretty clean..... my old water going in with the rock will only help keep it alive. If I put the cured live rock back into my tank then thats a possibly. Its in the dark now so theoretically algae can't grow. Slowly I should be able to kill most of it / wash away most of it with water changes.

Originally Posted by Myka

That white stuff is mold. There is still a lot of organics rotting inside that rock. It will take awhile for all the organics to leech out.

I thought it might be mold unless there was some other weird chemical relationship that was happening... I am not a chemist..... mold it is.....

I am thinking it will be a few weeks until its cured.....

[StirCrazy]

lot of work, but nothing you have done is what is referred to as "cooking" live rock, you just acid washed it, bleached it and are curing it.

but good description of what you did.

Steve

[hfp75]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

lot of work, but nothing you have done is what is referred to as "cooking" live rock, you just acid washed it, bleached it and are curing it.

Well, online there are a few different positions that are all described as cooking and curing..... there is definitely some overlap when it comes to the final goal.

I am by no means done yet. The acid wash was to remove PO4 on the outside of the rock & the bleach to kill everything. Then I'll start it cycling and changing water to try to remove bound nutrients.

For my rock thats in the tank water already this process has also just started and we will see how it ends up. There are more water changes on the horizon...

Since I'm not cooking it, what to you is cooking your rock and don't try to convince me to put it in the oven....

[Starry]

Myka wrote a good write up on cooking live rock.
See here:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=44859

[hfp75]

Thought I'd post a little update...

Thanks for the information from the other threads. My endevours are not yet complete....

Bucket that is curing... Doing well, no fowl smells & no more mold on top. I have been dumping the water and replacing it with my old tank water whenever I do a water change. Most of the visible algae is gone, just a bit of green hair..... its still in the dark with a heater, power head & an air stone. I put in 4 small crabs to start munching on whatever is edible in there. I'll be doing a water change tonight so I will see how its looking farther down towards the bottom of the bucket as well as the parameters.

Cleaning and cooking rock... As you initially saw I dunked it all into a Muratic Acid / water bath. Then the rock was subjected to two soaks in a bleach bucket. First soak was 2 cups of bleach and 2-3 days, followed by a rinse and another 2 cups with another 2-3 days of soaking time, then it was rinsed and soaked in water for about 5 days. No more bleach smell and it all came out onto my table top.

(I'll probably need to run a dechlorinator when I start it in a new tank due to the possibility of residual bleach)

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps09156610.jpg

I have now started the same process for the second batch of rock.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps217a3611.jpg

It'll take a few days but by the end of the month it'll be complete.

Once its all done then the rock is ready to start cooking.

I will have to decide if the rock I am 'curing' is going to be clean enough to run in a tank or if it will need the acid / bleach / cooking treatment first. We will wait and see.

[mikellini]

Originally Posted by hfp75

Well I did some reading and the order doesn't seem to matter... there are opinions both ways but I found nothing concrete to make me do it either way. I had the acid, so I did that first.

The reason you would want to bleach first is to get rid of the organics. Acid will kill and dissolve some organics (along with a layer of rock), but not all. A strong bleach concentration will actually dissolve organics first, making the acid wash more effective at removing the top layer of rock containing bound phosphates and perhaps metals.

Personally, I didn't want to mess with potentially harmful chemicals, so I just picked off all of the organics I could see, and did a few soak in RODI/dry in the sun cycles to clean the rock and leach phosphates/metals without losing any rock mass or using harsh chemicals. A bit more work and longer process, but to each their own.

[hfp75]

I have recently setup my new 80g tank, here is the new thread....

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...850#post916850