Alright so the red turd algae is getting out of hand so I'm going to rip off all of my coral off the rocks and then clean all of the rocks... Luckly most of the coral came off real nice and is sitting on the sand bed right now. So now I need to figure out how to clean this rock. This is how I'm thinking of going about cleaning the rock.. Correct me if I should do something different.



1:soak all of the the live rock with 50/50 Bleach and water for 2 days.
2:rinse with water and let sit in a bucket full of fresh water for 2 days.
3:Add 2lb box of baking soda per 15 gallons of fresh water.
4:Rinse off with fresh water again and let soak for 1 day.
5:dry out in the sun for 3-4 days.



After all the fun stuff I think I will need to let the rock cycle again since I do not want to re- cycle my tank with corals in it. So I'm going to put the live rock in a bucket with salt and pure water and let sit for about a month with a power head running.

Should this work out guys????

I know it's a lot of work but my tank is getting out of hand with the nasty alage and I want to start with fresh clean live rock.

Looks good, except Im not sure baking soda will neutralize the beach. I just did this to my rocks also to get rid of a blue clove polyp take over. So after I bleached, which I did about a 10/1 ratio which was plenty strong, I rinsed off with water then did an acid wash. The acid will eat up any phosphates and neutralize the bleach. And yes you will have to do a full cycle on the rocks. Oh and after I acid washed the rocks all rinsing was done with ro/di

Could I just go ahead and skip the bleach and use muratic acid? let that sit for a few days then rinse and use baking soda, then rinse again?


Also what do you think about just keeping these rocks in a container for about a month with salt and keep them in the dark? All of the alage should die off and I may not have to re cylce them?

Well I went ahead with muratic acid. I'm going to let that soak for 3 hours. Hopefully that should be enough.

How do I go about getting all of the acid of the rock?

No, it's not going to work unless you address the issue of why you have algae in the first place. For future reference just boil the rock if need be, but algae issues can be solved by dealing with the water issues, not the rock...

The acid will kill anything on the rocks, but it also eats away at the rock. 3 hours should do the job. The rock itself will neutralize the acid. Then do a ro dip. You can check if the acid is neutral by checking the ph of the water, if its about 7 or so then your good to go. Then off to the cycle bin they go

+1 on boiling and finding out the REAL problem. You just killed your 5 dollar a pound rock for nothing, I have never heard of "Red Poop Algae" however I am guessing it is cause by something or is atleast eaten by something. I have blue cloves all kinds of algae and monti eating nudis and I am a LOOOONG way from killing my rock. I may have to change my motto on this one.

IMO acid is better and more practical than boiling. The reason is it is not likely any of us have a way to boil rock easily, my biggest pot might fit two rocks, therefor having to boil, switch, boil, switch and so on. Also boiling might kill things, but does not remove anything so when you go to use the rocks again there will be a huge amount of organic die off. Acid is easy to use as most of us have a 5 gallon bucket or a 30 gallon rubbermaid we can use for the dip. Also when you are done with the acid the rocks will be spotless.

acid bathing rocks..

wow .. yeah pouring acid on my rock would be my LAST resort..

that right after letting them Bleach dry in the sun for months.

why is everybody so scared of acid? or for that matter killing off live rock? Im sure we have all gotten a few unwanted algaes or pests that we just want gone with out the risk of them coming back. Killing live rock will assure that that algae or pest is GONE. Also everybody seems to worry too much about killing off the rock, well whats the big deal? It's not six feet under, it's only a few weeks in a bucket

Why steal it from the ocean then?? Just use Texas Holey Rock in your next tank no hitchhikers and within a year you can grow coraline if you like it. The fact is that you cant get it ALL out of liverock most of it is pourous.

Sure some people do get live rock from the ocean, and Im not saying that its good for the environment, but it does happen. That is not to say we all go in with best intentions, but somewhere along the way we make a mistake or pick up unwanted hitchhikers. Some of us get it from oceans, others from other reefers, and some from dry base rocks, such as the texas holey rock. Texas holey is "live rock" once it is cycled. We don't know where Ando got his rock, from the ocean or not, but he has a problem with it. So why not address the issue and nip it in the bud? Also a year to grow coraline is ridiculous. If you were so seed your tank with even a tiny piece of coraline you could expect decent growth relatively quick. I have done this first hand so I know, and if yours took a year to grow maybe you should look into your water chemistry.

LOL. Cheap shot bro. My coraline comes and goes plates branches and encrusts. However a tank full of holey rock seeded will take a full year to look like liverock IMO. I have some with dusters and some with snails. as far as stealing it from the ocean that was meant more to preserve the life on the rock not to say that you are bad if you buy live rock, you should just take care of it. I would love for you to check out my tank thread. My water is better than yours, nananabooboo. Grow up folks, much like dogs your tank owns you, you have a responsibility to it, fight the good fight, dont just start from scratch(or worse) everytime an algae or bug is in your tank.

I dont want go get too far off topic, and keep this thread useful for the op. But let me give my example of why killing of the live rock was the only way to go. I had a small frag of blue clove polyps, Then one day they showed up on a different rock, then a different and kept popping up until almost every rock was covered. It didn't even look bad, it was that is was burying all my encrusting montis, sunset, rainbow, setosa, and a superman. Before I did the acid wash, I also tried to just keep the rock blacked out in a tub for a few weeks, and it looked like it might have worked, bet after a few weeks the whole tank was covered again. I was not about to take my tank down again with out 100% guarantee that they would not be back.

Damn, all this bleach and acid - I would be sh!tting bricks if I had to putt acid bleached rocks back in my display.

why?

+100 to that. The very last thing i would put in my display is a known caustic material. The porous nature of the rock used in our hobby allows for to much to be trapped inside and leech out over time. No thanks..

a swift boiling (2 rocks at a time who cares if its safe) to super heat the rock and kill all living organizms on it.
Let them sit out for 30 days in the sun.. who cares if it takes longer its safe.

all bleach or acid.. not on my watch.. faster and as 100% effective as other listed methods.. who cares if its not safe. Sorry I just cant put blind trust in the fact that ever pore of the rock will be cleaned/neutralized before placing it back into my aquarium. There is better safer ways that chemical warfare to clean the rock.

Time and patience are a must in this hobby.. quick fixes often show poor term results.

IMO;

Acid = no

Bleach = why not? Take the rock you want to sterilize and put it in a bucket with a 1part bleach to 3 part water mix leave it for 1/2 to 1 hr. take out rinse well until you no longer smell bleach then in a bucket with clean water and a chlorine neutralizing solution readily available at any LFS.

I am also a member on another forum, where there is a 10 page thread about using bleach and acid. There are a few reef chemists over there one with over 50,000 posts and another with over 70,000 posts. These guys see no problem whatsoever using bleach or acid. Im not sure if I am allowed to post a link to it so I will not, but pm me and I can get it for you

You can post itm
we are not RC

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1587539

I'm going to go read the other post and possibly my mind will change but would always opt for any non chemical approach before going to chemicals. Its just the way I would do things.

And for the record, I agree to try the natural approach first before chemicals. But if those natural methods dont work, bleach and or acid would be the next step

I thought the use of bleach and acid was something we generally stopped using along with undergravel filters and tons of crushed coral. This was a common practice over 20 years ago when I first set up a saltwater tank. I absolutely hated it. The size had to be over a hundred gallons, or so was the mentality o the time, and the tanks were such a pita to stabilize, prone to crashing without warning it seemed. I hated it so much that I tore the tank down after a year and swore to never have another one. The hundreds of thousands of gallons of salt water I dealt with at my job at the time was more than enough frustration. Watching them crash even with the benefit of a direct pipeline to natural ocean water was so disgusting.

I had a friend literally twist my arm 2 years ago to set up another sw tank. I am hopeless hooked now, and am quite happy with my small tanks. I seriously doubt I would ever bleach my rock like we did back then ever again.

OK so i took a little time as I am at work and read over the posts in the first 6 pages. (things were getting heavily repetitive so i saw no reason to continue much and I am about outa break time at work.. LOL )

Boiling- kills organizms and moves them to a degree... must recycle all rock

Bleach- Killes organisms and moves them to a degree.. this degree increases with higher bleach concentrations. you have 2 options heavy declorination or alot or rinse and wait to get the rock ready to recycle... must recycle all rock once complete

Acid- will kill organisms and remove copper phospate etc from the rock surfaces if build up has occured. Must be neutralized via rinse or other additions to bring your standing ph back to a degree of normality. This could go quickly or take a good while depending on rock density and how well the acid rinsed out of it.

To the OP your wanting to remove a surface of red algae buildup from the sounds of things. You did not state you had a phosphate or copper issue etc. I think a good boiling and some old fashion scrubbing would solve your issue and you can likely begin cycling in very short order.

If you bleach its days to weeks for the bleach to accomplish its job (you have to soak it) and to be declorinated after its done.

The choice is yours but I am still on the side of boil it off and scrub it.. sometimes things are best kept simple.

I had a sudden out break of cynobacteria, in my tank recently. No changes had been made in over a year and a half, so I tried to figure out what was going on. I decide to clean out my sump that had only been up for 6 months. The amount of detritus was shocking, so I vacummed the sand and drained all the water and refilled. Now no more algae problems, I am glad I did that prior to medicating my tank or doing anything drastic. I agree that if you do not treat what is causing the algae to take hold and grow then the problems will remain.

I would be interested in seeing any before and after pictures you have of your tank. As well as the real name of the algae that was causing the problems, red turd? If infact it was red in appearence was it cyno?

Well I decided on the acid wash approuch. I did 2 acid washes just to make sure I got everything. So today I washed the rock off with fresh water from the hose after that i'm going to set the rock in a tub with fresh ro/di water.

As far as a name of the algae it basically looked like thick bushes but it was a more of a purple look to it. So I called it red turf algae. Maybe purple turf alage would be a more appropriate name. I also got new ro/di filters bc my old ones were reading .1 tds so hopefully with new filters and keeping up on my water changes I will not get this problem again.

PS. red turd alage ment red TURF alage hahah... But I'm calling it purple turf alage...

I'm also thinking of taking out all of the sand and putting in new clean fresh sand... Any thoughts on this guys? My sand is full of detritus and is gross... Or how can I make it clean and fresh again?


Here are some crappy iPhone photos.

This is my tank currently with all the rock out.


here is the rock after the acid washes.



If you wanna see the pics of this "purple turf alage" click on this link of my thread... scroll down about half way down there is a good pic of a green slimer....you will see all of the purple algae around it... That was an old pic too. The algae got out of hand and spreaded to all of my rocks and was starting to smother coral..

why didnt you have the old school approach and just get a bristled brush from walmart and put some manual labor into it.

I tryed that glenn but it was in every nook and cranny.. So i said F this! I'm nooking the rock haha...


But what's the best way to get nice crisp white sand again? Since I have no rock in the tank..

I think you should have to rub the acid bathed rocks against your genitals and see if you have a reaction before subjecting your fish and inverts to those rocks.

Hmmmmm.... That should probably do the trick! Hahahahah

I rinsed off the rocks about 3 times and have them sitting in a tub full of tap water for about 2 hours. I now have them sitting in a tub filled with fresh RO/DI water. When should I know that the rocks are good to start cycling?

I tested the Ph in the water and it was about 9.5

I'd probably wait a little while to see it it drops and once your in the 6-8 range your good to go. you could add a little baking soda to speed that up

err that is kinda backwards.. it should have been low (assuming there is acid still precipitating from the rocks)

Do you have a pump running in the tub with the rocks?

From what i understood about the acid dipping the ph should be low and rise as the acids are rinsed from the rock.

so either you have highly buffered water or test is wrong.. LOL i donno which

Your ph should stabalize 7-9 ish

What is the ph of the raw water your using.. and is it a fresh water test kit or salt water (not sure if its different in saltvs fresh when testing PH.LOL )

I have no pump running in the tub, and the ph test I used was for fresh water.. Im going to let it sit over night and see how it is tomorrow.

Should I run a pump in the water or no?

+1 after re-reading

yes i would think with how porous the rock is used in reef tanks that you would need some type of flow to really flush the rocks.. I would adjust the flwo several times as well to make sure you ahve flow moving in a different directions and you dont have a dead spot pocketing some acidic content.

Alright I put a pump in the bin... Thanks

Checked the PH today and it's at 8. I'm going to make fresh RO/DI water today and add salt to it and start the cycle of these rocks! I guess it doesn't really matter for my salinity level be right around my tank level does it??

Do the rocks need a light above them too for my cylce? I forget hahah

you can run the salinity a little low to save on the mix. light not necessary, but Im not sure if it could help to speed up the cycle.

I have no problem with chemicals but I don't really understand why you would soak calcium carbonate rocks in a strong acid to kill algae? Bleach will kill everything just as dead and won't partially dissolve and weaken the rocks in the process and I question how well the acid will penetrate all of the pores due to the buffering action of the CaCO3.

I'd soak them in a weak bleach solution for several hours, rinse a couple times and then neutralize with hydrogen peroxide, seems much more well-matched to the task IMO.

Or you could just boil them. Worked out well for me.

I already acid dipped them.. Now I'm cycling the rocks