Cooking live rock ??????
- Thread starter MattDaReefer
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I don't really know how you can keep it live and get rid of all pests. My understanding (which may be wrong) is that cooking live rock is done in a dark container of saltwater with heat and circulation. This is to remove dead life to prevent an ammonia spike from the die off when its put into the DT but still keep the bacteria. Again I may be totally wrong. The OP mentioned vermatid snails so personally I would bleach it and start dry or look for live rock with no vermatids and take my chances with the other hitchhikers. I have a 180 that is infested with those nasty buggers with no way to get rid of them short of a tear down.
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A gallon of muratic acid to a 40 gal trash can of rock.. fill a little over half way with rock and water, add acid last… let it soak for 45 min.. take it out rinse it off and let it air dry for a few days and your good to go! Just did a huge rock for my new display and zero issues with it.
I had a piece covered with hair algae for some bizarre reason and a few aptasia. I brought the rock to a boil and wire brushed it in some rodi water. Once it cooled i mounted 3 goni’s on it and it went right back in. Its been about 3 weeks and its still spotless. Desperate measures… i have a zoa rock with the same issue and gave it a heavy peroxide treatment. Killed the hair algae but the aptasia just heckled me. Aptasia are the devil.
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Because everything costs a arm and a leg now lol.. people give away their rock any more cause they’re to lazy to put some work in…
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The only sure way to clean it is muriatic acid bath which has the added benefit of removing phosphates from the rocks. Yes then its dead rock but... at some point I had to step away from the hobby a couple years, but I saved all my rock which I knew would be irreplaceable. When I started up this 200g tank 9 years ago I cleaned the rock with muriatic acid. I put it all in the tank, added some bacterial cycling starter (don't recall which) and tank was up and running in a week. It really does not take much to seed it and I bought a couple small pieces of live rock and some rubble. I had also installed a sandbed and part of it was the Caribsea live stuff. In a few weeks I had added some inverts and then a pair of clowns (still have today). Some early pieces of coral I bought added some additional really nice coralline which grew like wildfire under the MH lights I had at the time. And seriously does anyone really think it's still "live rock" after a bleach bath???
No. It’s also not live after muriatic acid. OP wasn’t exactly clear in his initial post that he wanted to keep the rock “alive” while trying to remove pests. The easiest way to remove pests from the rock is to reset it.
Have any pictures?
The shrooms and nems should be pretty easy. Can take a knife and scrape where they were attached to make sure nothing is left behind. The small amount of exposed rock will not affect anything. The aptasia as mentioned just a kalk paste or F Aptasia in a bucket/container one rock at a time. For the snails, start mashing them at the base. It will be time-consuming for sure. Best of luck to you.
To the OP: if you don't care if the rock is live anymore or not throw it in your choice of bleach, muriatic acid, peroxide, or a variety of other toxic chemicals. That's the fastest way to kill any and all hitchhikers. It seemed like you wanted it to remain live based on one of your earlier posts but if not, it's actually a lot simpler to kill off everything and start from sterile.
I cook my rock in oil.
Jokes aside, If you want to completely clear it, muriatic acid or bleach is the way to go. Otherwise, you can let it sit in a tub or something for a while in the dark, but it gives peace of mind to know that you are mostly in control of what's in your tank if you bleach it.
Jokes aside, If you want to completely clear it, muriatic acid or bleach is the way to go. Otherwise, you can let it sit in a tub or something for a while in the dark, but it gives peace of mind to know that you are mostly in control of what's in your tank if you bleach it.
As others have already pointed out, make sure that you don't have any zoanthids / palythoa growing on your rock, or have ever grown on your rock in the past
If you heat it up, or treat it with chemicals, you can risk serious airborne palytoxin poisoning, where it could send everyone in your house to the hospital and kill your house pets
I'm sure you know this already, but just in case - would hate to see on the news "Local Reef Keeper Hospitalized after Placing Rocks in Oven"
In case anyone wants to learn more about palytoxin, Julian Sprung's speech at Reefapalooza is very good
If you heat it up, or treat it with chemicals, you can risk serious airborne palytoxin poisoning, where it could send everyone in your house to the hospital and kill your house pets
I'm sure you know this already, but just in case - would hate to see on the news "Local Reef Keeper Hospitalized after Placing Rocks in Oven"
In case anyone wants to learn more about palytoxin, Julian Sprung's speech at Reefapalooza is very good
This is what I'm thinking about doing.
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