liverock bleaching advice?

[treesprite]

I took the liverock out of my DT and want to kill it off, hopefully in a process that won't take forever. I was thinking bleaching, but need more information from people who have done it. Info on some other relatively painless method would be good too. I do not have a yard, so leaving the rock to dry out in the sun is not an option. I will not be killing off the sump liverock, so there will still be needed bacterias and stuff for the tank.

 

Thanks.

 

[Jan]

Hydrogen peroxide and water 50:50. Let it sit in the solution for 2 days. Rinse with ro/di water. It is best to let it sit in the sun but if that's not an option then maybe getting a sunlamp would work? I was just following a marine biologist on another site as he did this. He soaks the rocks and drys it in the sun twice. Says it takes about 2-3 weeks to complete and get all the rock bright white. Safer than acid.

[sen5241b]

I used a bleach solution. 30% bleach the rest water. Let'em soak overight but I was surprised at how much rinsing and de-chlorinator it took to neutralize the chlorine bleach.

[trockafella]

What are you trying to accomplish.?

[s2nhle]

Hydrogen peroxide and water 50:50. Let it sit in the solution for 2 days. Rinse with ro/di water. It is best to let it sit in the sun but if that's not an option then maybe getting a sunlamp would work? I was just following a marine biologist on another site as he did this. He soaks the rocks and drys it in the sun twice. Says it takes about 2-3 weeks to complete and get all the rock bright white. Safer than acid.

+1 This is much safer. I do the same thing with filter socks no bleach.

[jacobB89]

Question tagging along here as i have about 150lbs of dry rock sitting.

 

what does 50:50 hydrogen peroxide and water accomplish?

 

problem with my rock is phosphates i tried cooking it for 4-5 weeks with water changed didn't help months back.

 

so if this works I will try before i get all new dry rock from some place.

[bqq100]

My understanding is that hydrogen peroxide and bleach will both kill off/dissolve organics, while the phosphate bound to the rock is inorganic and will be unaffected.  Acid would dissolve the top layers of rock taking anything organic or inorganic with it.  I'm by no means an expert and may be completely wrong!  

[Jan]

Question tagging along here as i have about 150lbs of dry rock sitting.

 

what does 50:50 hydrogen peroxide and water accomplish?

 

problem with my rock is phosphates i tried cooking it for 4-5 weeks with water changed didn't help months back.

 

so if this works I will try before i get all new dry rock from some place.

It dissolves organic matter and when place in the sun will bleach the rock white. Peroxide is a cheap and easy way to become a blond. 

Edited May 6, 2014 by Jans Natural Reef Foods

[bendeng]

Duke and I bought 100lbs of live rock from craigslist. We scrubbed them with plastic bristle brushes and let it all soak in a heavy duty tub with roughly half a gallon of bleach and filled with water. We let it soak for 24, rinsed, and repeated. Then we rinsed and after letting it soak in clean water for a couple weeks (alternating rinsing and drying in the sun).

 

We took the extra precaution because the rocks were cheap but infested with bubble algae. We were still setting up our plumbing so we had the time to bleach off all life on the rocks.

 

It is currently in Duke's 6ft tank and his 40b. Now most is covered in beautiful purple coraline.

 

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[jacobB89]

guess im stuck to acid bah 

[08can-am]

No one here uses acid? I did a 32 gallon trash can of rock with acid for 2 hours. Then bleach over night. Rinse and bleach agsin then sosked in water with prime for s day then rinsed and let sit out a couple days

 

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[treesprite]

It dissolves organic matter and when place in the sun will bleach the rock white. Peroxide is a cheap and easy way to become a blond. 

Do you know this firsthand? Haha JK. I learned about it from watching M*A*S*H (have never and will never do it).

 

 

What are you trying to accomplish.?

 1. Get rid of whatever is on my liverock that keeps stinging me (probably is part of the reason I have been having big failure with corals).

 

2.  Prevent an aiptasia breakout. I'm pissed because after all these years and never having aiptasia, one day one showed up. I put kalk paste on it and epoxy over it. Couple days later discovered one on another rock. I did the same thing. The second one found a new hole about a half inch away and showed up a couple days later. I did it again and again it came out of a new spot. Then the first one I had found showed up in a different spot - with 2 brothers. I absolutely refuse to allow aiptasia in my tank. I don't know where they came from. A long while back some freebie macros I had gotten turned out to have aiptasia mixed in, so I threw the stuff out. I am wondering if one or two managed to go through my return into my DT.

 

I decided a long time ago that I would never get living rock again, because of the horror stories other people tell. If I could afford it, I'd just get rid of this and get Marco rock or something similar.  I did get a couple pieces of dry south seas rock from Tropical Lagoon the other day, because my poor animals were going crazy. The tang is still unhappy since now he has to just swim back and forth all day.

Edited May 7, 2014 by treesprite

[treesprite]

Will I need to completely cycle it afterwards, or can I put it in the tank as soon as it's thoroughly free of whatever chemical I use?

[bendeng]

Will I need to completely cycle it afterwards, or can I put it in the tank as soon as it's thoroughly free of whatever chemical I use?

I'm assuming whatever chemical based cleaning method you use will thus make your live rock = dead rock. Once its dried and ready, you should be able to plop it in and it'll begin its new life as a clean rock and grow new stuffs all over it. 

 

At least, thats how it worked for us...

[zygote2k]

bleaching the rock to rid yourself of aiptasia and some sort of stinging things is drastic overkill IMO. get a pair o' filefish and let them eat the aiptasia and hydroids if you have them.

I use these fish to remove aiptasia, majanos, and hydroids.

[sen5241b]

1+ Bleach is overkill but maybe you want overkill.

[sen5241b]

and if there's anyway you can nuke the rock do that too

[s2nhle]

I heard that pepermint shrimp will eat the aiptasia too.

[trockafella]

How can you be certain you don't have aiptasia in your sump and or overflow/plumbing.? Seems like a lot of work for something you still cant be sure of.

[wangspeed]

I use the diluted muratic acid method.  Just don't go nuts with it on super porous rock like Pukani.

[treesprite]

I'm trying out bleaching on a bucket of rubble that has been sitting around for a very long time. Been in the bleach/wqater mix for a couple days.

[treesprite]

Bleaching rubble in 30% did not make it white, that's for sure (but I don;t want my rock all white anyway).

 

I think I am just going to let my liverock air dry then cycle it for a month.

 

I bought some dry "South Seas" stuff from Tropical Lagoon to have something in the display. I may go back and get more of it, because the shapes seem to work out fairly well when epoxied together. Unfortunately, it is all white, so it's got some diatoms on it at the moment.

 

Whatever I did in taking out the rock, taking out some sand one day, some the next, some the next.... doing several water changes in the same number of days... my corals are open bigger than I have seen them in some time. The water was basically opaque off and on for 4 or 5 days, from taking out sand a bit a day for several days. Now the water is crystal clear.

Edited May 12, 2014 by treesprite

[treesprite]

The rocks are about 3/4 dry on the outside, and I'm guessing damp in the parts I can't see. They have just been sitting out on plastic on the floor for a few days. I'm trying to decide when to put them in water to cycle/cure them. If I put them back in water when they are still slightly damp way on their insides but not outside, wouldn't they still have some live bacteria inside of them without having any bad stuff still growing on them?