Sure you have? Isn’t the sump part of your system? It is the same water isn’t it?
If you don’t cycle them you will get a pick of ammonia and may suffer from fatalities in the worst scenario or you will get tons of algae in the best one.

huge danger!

The safest way working with acid in this situation anyways.
Place rocks in a bucket full of water have a couple pump in to circulate the water.add a ph probe to have a constant readout.
Slowly add the acid till you hit your desirable ph. Run it for few hours or maybe a day.
Remove all the rocks wash thourouhgly acid wash is done.
Now it's time for cycle the rocks ,never in your main system.totally separate tub.

Oh use gloves to take the rocks out or wait till your ph is readind 7.5 or higher.
Or maybe call me I will remove the rock out with my leather hands,lol,

Sorry for all the typos.....my laptop is in service and a friend lent me an old laptop but I am not used to this keyboard.

Back to the topic…..what is my desired ph in this scenario?

Here are a couple links all about the acid cleaning. I found it to be very heplful.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...=cleaning+rock

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1587539

Hope that helps you.

very informative read there MrsBugmaster.

I purchased some dry eco rock from eco-reefer - anyone know if i should do the bleach/muratic acid bath/possible lanthanum treatment? Are the eco/marco rocks totally "neutral" or do they have some buildup still contained within from whatever prehistoric reef they came from?

also - can we use just a regular rubbermaid container or will the bleach/acid eat through the container?

I got some eco rock and put it in RO/Di water with a powerhead for a week then tested water for phosphates. It did test a smaller lever of phosphate so I did the acid wash to be safe. You can use any rubber maid type container.

So how long do i need to cycle these rocks for then? Until the Water parameters are within acceptable ranges?

There seems to be a huge issue here that nobody is talking about. IF you choose to do the acid bath it will clean your rock BUT BE WARNED it will also drastically weaken the rock (depending on the density, structure and the organism that created it).

IF I was going to do this I would use white vinegar, for two reasons:

1) it comes in a dilute easily available solution that cant harm your rock with a short bath
2) vinegar will have a similar effect as any other acid on calcium carbonate but the residue is not only non toxic but will feed bacteria capable of cycling your rock. white vinegar is acetic acid.

If you still feel uncomfortable with the copper situation run some copper resin on it for a week or so. that should do it.

FUN FACT: you can dissolve an egg in vinegar (try that before you dip your coral in HCl :lol:)

Zar

Just boil them and put them in some RO water. Than put one chunk a week in your sump until they are all in. I put 100lbs of rock in my sump that way a couple of years ago with no issues at all.You already stated that the die off was from something else other than a copper treatment. Your buddy should know if he added copper or not.