Cooking and Curing Rock....

[hfp75]

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.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...pseac09d0a.jpg

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.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps9d211f28.jpg
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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...

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps5f1b1e44.jpg

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....

[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.

[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.

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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?

[Wheelman76]

Originally Posted by 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?

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.

[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.

[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....