Live rock question

[KathyC]

That means everything is dead,as you said. You have to cure it; "cook" is a slang term for cure. You don't have to go overboard. Put it into a tub with a heater (regular temp like 78, salt water (you can use water from water changes) and a powerhead. Basically,you want the dead stuff to decay in here and not in your tank, where it would cause all kinds of spikes. When you go the lfs,that's usually how they have their rock.

The bolded part is incorrect.
There is a big difference between curing rock & cooking it.

When you cure rock, you are getting rid of the dead/decaying matter in the rock that will cause your ammonia to spike.

Cooking rock rids the rock of anything it has adsorbed..like phosphates & nitates and makes it ready for the curing process where it will become 'live' with bacteria. It is a longer process but ensures you don't have to deal with any issues the prior owner may have had with the rock.

 

[James983]

Nice Live Rock is definitly worth keeping. I recently purchased some nice Tonga Branch from another member that had been sitting for weeks to years depending on the piece. Some had very fresh die off and others were bone white.

Having used BRS Pukani dead rock on my present set up I know that it leached PO4 for several months causing a real difficult hair algea problem. Not wanting to deal with that again I searched how best to "cook" my Tonga Branch. Now I refer to cooking as cleaning the rock of all organic material and PO4.

After much searching I decided to first used a 10% bleach solution bath. That involves simply putting all the LR in a bucket with 10 parts water to 1 part bleach. I left that for about 30 mins. I then removed the rock and did a fresh water rinse with tap water. I did not use RO water as the process is followed by a 10% Muriatic Acid bath which will remove the PO4 and any chemicals such as copper if they were absorbed by any of the LR. What the acid does in effect is etch or remove a thin layer of the LR.

When you do this step it is important to do it outside in fresh air because when you add the acid, the tub will start to bubble immediately. The fumes are dangerous so this must be done outside. Use a bin large enough to allow for the bubbles so as not to overflow. Put the rock in the bin, followed by water followed by acid. I let that solution sit for about 25 mins. Do not let it sit too long as it is dissolving your rock. I then added about 1/2 a box of baking soda to the bucket to neutralize the acid. I dumped the acid solution in a safe place in my yard where nothing was growing and then did a RO water rinse. I then let the rock sit in the sun for a few hours to remove any bleach smell.

The next step was filling a 30 gallon tank with water from DP tank (I used water change water but you can make fresh) and a good powerhead and heater. There it's been sitting for about a month now where I am making it live again by adding food daily. I am in no hurry and am paranoid about PO4. I will let it sit for months changing the water with my water change water regularly. If you are setting up new you can just put it in your tank and seed it with some LR from the LFS.

It's important to realize when LFS "cure" LR what they are doing is letting it sit to remove the dead material from shipping, usually over night shipping. The rock is still live because of the bacteria. The amount of die off is much less than over a three day period. When you buy LR you get the good with the bad. The good being the bacteria and some neat coraline. The bad being Mojanos, Aptasia, Halimedia etc.

The old method of "cooking" LR, where you put the LR in a bin with saltwater in total darkness will work but will take several months to be effective. Even then it's not full proof. Many bad things can live for months in total darkness.

Which ever way you go, good luck.

 

[Bikeboss11]

You should not have put it in hot water, now the rock is definitely dead... Wat you should do is put it in a bucket of salt water, heater and pump like they said and try and add another piece of live rock from your uncle tank to seed back that dead rock.... Gud luck