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cooked live rock question


bxz

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I cooked my old tank live rocks in a dark container for about 6 months with pump and heater, now they all look clean and a little light greenish, I know that most of the organism probably all died off. My questions are

 

1) Are these considered cured live rock?

 

2) Is there bacteria on it so that I can start a new tank bypassing the cycling process?

 

thx

BxZ

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As long as you were feeding the rock a source of ammonia during the six months there will be bacteria. But if you just threw it in water and let it sit with no food source its just wet rock.

 

Only way to know is add ammonia, test the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels the next day. If you have no ammonia/ nitrite, but have nitrate, you are all set to go.

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gulfsurfer101

Yeah they are still live and you can bypass a cycle using them however I've found that some algae will go dormant without lighting and may return.

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thx, that's a good way to test. I thought the dying off from the old rock acted as some sort of ammonia source, but i'll throw a small piece of shrimp then test the water.

As long as you were feeding the rock a source of ammonia during the six months there will be bacteria. But if you just threw it in water and let it sit with no food source its just wet rock.

 

Only way to know is add ammonia, test the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels the next day. If you have no ammonia/ nitrite, but have nitrate, you are all set to go.

 

I'll keep an eye on that, thx.

Yeah they are still live and you can bypass a cycle using them however I've found that some algae will go dormant without lighting and may return.

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I think it's totally dependent on the rock and the conditions... Cured means there's no dead organic material on the rock - so they're likely cured. They're also likely partially cycled. The bacteria certainly exists the question is whether the rock can provide enough biological filtration.

 

I cooked some rock for like 2 years (seriously forgot about it) and when I needed to set up a QT I put some in there (not even that much) and it provided sufficient biological filtration for a small bioload.

 

As for the algae - I can confirm that it's possible for some algae to survive extended blackouts... In my case the algae was clearish/white. Probably surviving off nutrients in the water in some sort of dormant state. Maybe hit the rocks up with a brush just in case?

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gulfsurfer101

I'm the kind of guy who doesn't have the patience to let my fish fry before I eat it! I think the best way to deal with nuisance rock plauged by returning algae is to just burn it off. Using a muriatic acid bath of 1g to 10g ratio will do the trick. There's lots of info on this inn other threads. Soak it in some ro water with a phosphate sponge media a day or two then let it air dry! You have saved yourself many weeks of waiting. Place it in a bucket of sw and drop some liquid ammonia in there. Get it to like 10ppm and you are on your way to like new phosphate free, pest free seeded live rock.

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I'm the kind of guy who doesn't have the patience to let my fish fry before I eat it! I think the best way to deal with nuisance rock plauged by returning algae is to just burn it off. Using a muriatic acid bath of 1g to 10g ratio will do the trick. There's lots of info on this inn other threads. Soak it in some ro water with a phosphate sponge media a day or two then let it air dry! You have saved yourself many weeks of waiting. Place it in a bucket of sw and drop some liquid ammonia in there. Get it to like 10ppm and you are on your way to like new phosphate free, pest free seeded live rock.

I've done this a few times and its always worked out good.
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gulfsurfer101

Makes you feel cool like your some kind of scientific guy or something! Besides you can toss it right back in once you know the rock is processing ammonia and breaking it down to nitrite and nitrate it can be placed back. Or if your even lazier than that you can just seed it with live sand and lrr but run the risk of adding back any harmful spores you just fought to get rid of. You already skipped weeks of black out so now would be the time to go slow and let nature do it's thing.

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