How do I properly clean live rock

[jason604]

So I bought a bunch of new live rock to soon replace the rocks in my tank because they not very pourus. Before I do that how do I fully clean my new rocks with muriatic and bleach? Can someone please give me step by steps instruction on how to do this correctly and safely?

Thanks

Jason

[SoloSK71]

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

Charles

[Craigdillman]

if you bought live rock don't kill it with acid thats the point of live rock

if you bought dry or dead rock then go through the process of acid if u want or the process of curing or making them live

[jason604]

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

Charles


Don't see where it shows how to get rid of all the gunk deep inside the rocks in that post

if you bought live rock don't kill it with acid thats the point of live rock

if you bought dry or dead rock then go through the process of acid if u want or the process of curing or making them live

The rocks I got came from a sump that was shut down and looked rly dirty. Even with good live rock I wanna make sure everything is 100% fresh because I believe my rocks in my tank are leaching phosphate thus the large amt of hair algae I'm having. I wanna make sure this won't happen again.

I have about 70lbs of rock I wanna clean. Can I just put it in a garbage bin and pour like a gallon of bleach into it with water then leave 1-2 hrs and flush clean with hose then do it again but with muriatic acid for 1-2 hrs or am I missing something

[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!

[FishyFishy!]

Bleach soak

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/bilmaga/Fishroom%20Build/20140809_160014_zpscvotq4jw.jpg (http://s24.photobucket.com/user/bilmaga/media/Fishroom%20Build/20140809_160014_zpscvotq4jw.jpg.html)

Acid bath

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/bilmaga/Fishroom%20Build/20140810_124511_zpspatpo06e.jpg (http://s24.photobucket.com/user/bilmaga/media/Fishroom%20Build/20140810_124511_zpspatpo06e.jpg.html)

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/bilmaga/Fishroom%20Build/20140810_125012_zpshsrq32uf.jpg (http://s24.photobucket.com/user/bilmaga/media/Fishroom%20Build/20140810_125012_zpshsrq32uf.jpg.html)

Finished product

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c38/bilmaga/Fishroom%20Build/20140811_171818_zpse6n96w9h.jpg (http://s24.photobucket.com/user/bilmaga/media/Fishroom%20Build/20140811_171818_zpse6n96w9h.jpg.html)

[Aquattro]

I just did this with my rock.

I'm curious what the rock does 3 months after the tank is setup? I used dead rock, against what I normally advocate, and regret my decision. I didn't do the bleach/acid thing, but cooked it for a while.
Curious if this purifying actually does any better?

[FishyFishy!]

I have yet to use it. Its actually going into my tank tomorrow, so time will tell. The way I see it, its similar to using the bulk reef saver rock. I set up a tank with the fiji reef rock and seeded it with a couple nice pieces of coraline covered live rock from another tank. After the diatoms and the hair algae, I just put a massive cleaning crew in, and it came out awesome. Im hoping this will be relatively the same. We'll see I guess lol

[FishyFishy!]

And I will also add, that the only reason I did this, was that a lot of my fuge rubble had a byropsis issue. And some of the larger pieces of rock had pests when I got them. I didnt have much of a choice unless I wanted to try and battle pests in my tank.

I have had great success using live rock from the store, but at $8.00/lb a large tank filled with nice store bought rock wasnt in the budget this time around.

[Aquattro]

After the diatoms and the hair algae, I just put a massive cleaning crew in

:) That's where I'm at now. My rock isn't bad, but I'm comparing it to my last build when I used fresh rock. I didn't have any of these issues and nutrients were never measurable. Currently sitting too high on NO3 and PO4 for my liking, and not convinced it's going to get better any time soon.

I figure if things aren't under control by end of month 3, I'm replacing the rock with fresh stuff.

[Aquattro]

I have had great success using live rock from the store, but at $8.00/lb a large tank filled with nice store bought rock wasnt in the budget this time around.

Ya, but over 50 pounds gets cheaper, and for me, I can get better pricing so not a huge issue. I would only need 50 pounds, so within budget, since now I'm doing 50g water changes every 10 days.

I used this rock simply for the shapes, it's all hand picked rock from Indo (guy went over and picked the pieces brought up to the beach) and some really nice shapes.
But, for the look of it now, and the algae smothering frags, I'm questioning whether I did the right thing :)

[Reef Pilot]

What am I missing here?? If you buy live rock, why would you then kill it with acid or bleach? Save your bucks and buy dead rock (marco rock or equivalent) and do the acid with that if you must.

When I first got into this hobby 4 years ago, I had to deal with old tank syndrome live rock (inherited a 10 year running tank) with both high nitrates and high phosphates. It took a while but eventually got it down to zero nitrates and phosphates. Knowing what I know now, that time would be drastically reduced if I had to do it again.

Also added marco rock and only rinsed and soaked it for a few weeks (with many water changes) before adding to my display tanks. I did get a phosphate spike again, but got that under control pretty quick. I have used Foz Down also, and it really works well to get a serious phosphate problem under control. But as others have said, you need to be careful with your doses. Then I just maintained with GFO.

The key also is having the right P04 test kit. Your color test kits are not accurate enough and can lull you into thinking you have low or no phosphates. You need the Hanna digital checker for that.

[FishyFishy!]

What am I missing here??

Im not sure what the OP's reasons are, but I did mine because of bad pests. Namely byropsis.

[jason604]

I bought the rocks for rly cheap like 50 cent a lbs but they were rly dirty so might as well kill everything on them. My tank is full of long green hair algae. Been running a Gfo reactor for a week now but it doesn't seem to be improving.

[jason604]

Just wondering y I have to soak the rocks in ro water after the acid. Can't I just use tap n rdy it out after to remove chlorine

[SoloSK71]

I bought the rocks for rly cheap like 50 cent a lbs but they were rly dirty so might as well kill everything on them. My tank is full of long green hair algae. Been running a Gfo reactor for a week now but it doesn't seem to be improving.

Pest problems (and algae) and new tanks take a LONG time to get under control.

Yes, you can use all sorts of products and, if you are extremely rigid with your schedule, you can shorten the time a lot.

Yes, you can do a LOT of work (Myka's guide or how Fishy did it) to also try and short circuit the pest problems.

I feel that I am better educated and prepared for any problems down the road for having taken the long term approach. That is, putting the rock in the tank, leaving it 'fallow' for almost 3 months and then dealing with issues one at a time. It has taken three years to deal with large pests (that can kill fish or coral), algae (the source and the actual algae itself), small pests (working on that now, just got rid of red flatworms) and finally getting nutrients and various supplements/elements steady.

Charles

[Reef Pilot]

Been running a Gfo reactor for a week now but it doesn't seem to be improving.
For really serious P04 problems, use Foz Down. That will bring it down guaranteed. Then use GFO to maintain.

You didn't mention nitrates (unless I missed it). That is also a problem with new (or old) live rock. You have to get rid of that, too with bio pellets or carbon dosing. Be sure to use MB7 or some other beneficial bacteria supplement, or you will end up with cyano.

If you read my journal about the early days of my tank, you can see how I did it. Like I said, though, knowing what I know now, could get it done much sooner.

[jason604]

My nitrate is 0 and my p04 is 0 too for some reason. Using salifert test kit. The rocks in my tank right now is ugly none pouris pieces anyways.

[intarsiabox]

My nitrate is 0 and my p04 is 0 too for some reason. Using salifert test kit. The rocks in my tank right now is ugly none pouris pieces anyways.

If you have a lot of algae it will consume the PO4 as quickly as it is produced giving you a false indication of phosphate levels.

[Reef Pilot]

My nitrate is 0 and my p04 is 0 too for some reason. Using salifert test kit. The rocks in my tank right now is ugly none pouris pieces anyways.
Yup, I used a salifert PO4 test before too, and it also showed zero. Then I got a Hana checker which goes down to 2 decimal places, and took another big effort before I finally got that one down to zero.

Even nitrate color tests can be misleading if you don't do it right. Need to really follow instructions with shaking the solutions and waiting the required times, or can also get false readings.


If you truly had zero nitrates and phosphates, you wouldn't have an algae problem. I still remember my algae almost falling off the rocks with slight tooth brushing after I hit zero on those parameters. I found that hair algae in particular will thrive with less than 0.10 ppm P04. Just recently, I let both nitrates and P04 get out of control a bit, and the hair algae came back with a vengeance. So I know very well how quickly and easily that happens.

Also should mention to have good flow across your rocks, and if necessary occasionally turkey baste them to be sure no detritus collects. Hair algae loves to attach where it can collect particles.

And hopefully you have some tangs. They (Kole is the best) also do a great job of keeping algae off rocks before it has a chance to form.

[mikellini]

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!

[jason604]

Oh man did I mess up? After pouring a gallon of bleach in a garbage bin full of rock I notice that the bleach was lemon scented. Is this bad or can I just flush it with water tomorrow and it be fine after a acid bath? Not too worried about acid bath making my rocks lose mass. It won't lose much.

[SoloSK71]

The acid *should* get any residual organics, which *might* include the scent chemicals. You may have to go multiple cycles of RO/DI water, perhaps even with carbon, before you can be sure.

Charles

[jason604]

The acid *should* get any residual organics, which *might* include the scent chemicals. You may have to go multiple cycles of RO/DI water, perhaps even with carbon, before you can be sure.

Charles

Ok thx I will soak it in ro/di water a couple times with a power head and one of those hang on filters with carbon after I do my acid wash tmr.

[mikellini]

Whatever the lemon scent is, it won't be organic. Chlorine bleach disintegrates organics, that's how it works. And if you're doing the acid bath to get rid of phosphates, then you'll actually need to lose a significant amount of mass to be successful. It works by removing a layer of rock that has adsorbed phosphates, if you don't remove enough then you're not removing phosphates. Depending on the porosity of the rock, I've heard of acid baths removing 25% of the dry mass of the rock.

Carbon will probably help with removing whatever the lemon scent chemical is. Also soaking in RODI will pull it into the water for removal

[jason604]

No way 25% lose of rock? Can't be that much

[Aquattro]

No way 25% lose of rock? Can't be that much

While I'm not sure that's a real number, you do need to remove a layer of every external and internal surface to unbind the PO4. You're gonna lose some mass :)

[mikellini]

Maybe 10% for your average rock, but one guy on reef central did it with pukani and lost 25%, didn't even look like the same rock

[jason604]

Do u guys think only bleach is good enough or maybe like a 30min acid bath as well to minimize mass loss?

[mikellini]

Honestly I would just do a few successive soaks in RODI. 0 tds water is very aggressive at pulling things out of rock, it's a strong solvent

[jason604]

Ok so I did a bleach soak for 24hr then power washed the rocks an they turned out pretty white. Did a 1.5hr soak in muriatic acid and power washed it again. Rocks turned out dirtier than after I bleached it. I did notice some loss of rock mass. About 10% or less I would guess. I have it in a bin with ro water and a hang on back carbon filter. Would it turn white again after a few days ro soak?

[FishyFishy!]

They should come out a bit whiter, but after eating away the surface of the rock, all the residual crap made them a little darker. I personally wouldnt worry about the fact that they arent really white. They (hopefully) will be covered in coraline after a good cycle anyways. If you like the white color, you could do another bleach bath. But afterwards I would do a long RO water soak with prime, and then sun dry for a week or so to make sure the bleach is all gone.

[jason604]

What's the need for prime when I'm using or water?

[FishyFishy!]

If you decided to re-bleach the rocks for color, you should always add a de-chlorinator. But if you are happy with the color, and are done with the acid bath, then you are good to go without the prime.

[mikellini]

If you decided to re-bleach the rocks for color, you should always add a de-chlorinator. But if you are happy with the color, and are done with the acid bath, then you are good to go without the prime.

They'll turn white again if left in the sun

[FishyFishy!]

They'll turn white again if left in the sun

Yeah mine seemed to do that for sure