So, to keep with the title, over the last few months I have been acquiring used rock when the price was right, I have on average paid $1/lb. sometimes it was live and sometimes it was dried, it has sat on my back porch in a Rubbermaid until yesterday. You see we are moving in August and I will need the rock soon.....
I'll go through my cooking first and the curing second...
Cooking:
Yesterday I filled the Rubbermaid and 2 buckets with water and put the rock in. I wanted it to soak and see what I could get off before I start the process. By shaking the rock and with some light spraying with the hose I did get a bunch of gunk off the rock. It still had a bunch of old dried algae though.
Once it had soaked (12-18hrs) and been rinsed I put it out to start drying again. I ran over to RONA and got a jug of Muriatic Acid (20% hcl).
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Today, I got started, it took me about 4 hrs to get this all done but I'm finished. I took the Rubbermaid and filled it 2/3 with water, and then fit in as much rock as I could - fully submerged @ 2/3 full. Then I added 1/2 of the jug of Muriatic Acid. It really started to foam and bubble - this last about 15 - 20 minutes. I gave it a full hour though to make sure that I had been able to use up all the acid. (I had to rebath the one end of a rock - visible sticking up in the pics - the old algae on it was suborn)
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Then I took out each piece of rock and washed it again under the hose with the jet - lots of force. I was happy to see that 97% of the crap on the rocks was easily hosed off. I was also liberal with the water to ensure that anything left over from the acid bath was washed. Then it went into a bucket of fresh water to soak until the next piece had been hosed off. After the bucket it went to rest and dry in a pile.
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I did all the rock this way and cycled it all through two full Rubbermaid baths of Muriatic Acid. Now I have a pile of rock thats about 2' tall and 1.5' wide.
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Next...
(I'll reply to the post with some pics of the bleaching ....)
Tonight I'll grab a jug of bleach.... I'll get a 1:10 ratio of bleach water and get the rock in there soaking. I'll let it soak for a day or so and then take it out and rinse it off and then resoak it in a normal water bath (with a powerhead). I'll let it soak until I cannot small bleach anymore, then run the garden hose and replace the water & let it sit for another 2 days. It should be bleach free at that point. I'll probably need to do this twice to get all the rock through....
Then....
(I'll reply to the post with some pics of the cycling ....)
I'll put rock into the Rubbermaid and use old tank water to start the cycle on the clean rock....
Curing:
I was fortunate to get a bunch of live rock from Tobysmurf. So, not knowing what he kept his params at, I have decided to cure it. I have filled a 10gal (size of 2 salt buckets) full of his live rock and added my old tank water to fill it to the top. As well I have added a powerhead, heater and air bubbler, lastly, a thick black garbage bag over the top to eliminate light. It has been running for 2 days and stinks terribly!!! Its working...
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I'll do another water change on my tank in a few days and use that water to replace water in the curing bucket... I'll keep doing this process.
Come 3 weeks I'll check the params (PO4 & NO3) and see if it has cured....
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I have come to realize that rock is a sponge for what is in a tank (PO4 and different types of algae). When you get someones old live rock you should consider it saturated in PO4 and covered in bad algae. The processes above should work to eliminate these problems. I am always amused to see people selling their old live rock for the same as new store prices when its saturated with PO4 and algae spores..... the buyer is caught cooking or curing it and running a heavy batch of Rowaphos to ensure its good. to go.... The same goes for sand....