Freezing Dry Rock

[Luckeones]

Hi all! I have decided to move my 25 gallon bow front and it’s inhabitants into a new 10 gallon tank. It is stocked with 8 (ish) snails of various species, 6(ish) hermit crabs, 2 small ocellaris clowns, yellow watchman goby, and a cleaner shrimp. I had to move locations and have been planning on downsizing for a while now, and am using some leftover equipment I had lying around. I put 2 rocks from the big tank into the small one, and noticed some algae that seems to be dinoflagellates. I live in the cold climate of Iowa, and was wondering if all of this algae would be killed if i left the rocks outside for a day or so(is that enough time to kill it all? Am I overreactin?) Any advice on killing the life on these rocks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 

[This guy is extra salty]

Yes leaving your live rock out for 3 days will kill most of everything on it, including your beneficial bacteria 

[Water Dog]

Unlike in the hot summer months, my concern would be that with the cold weather, the rock will not dry out sufficiently.  As long as some portion of it stays wet, I think that life, good or bad will remain viable.

[Luckeones]

7 hours ago, Water Dog said:

Unlike in the hot summer months, my concern would be that with the cold weather, the rock will not dry out sufficiently.  As long as some portion of it stays wet, I think that life, good or bad will remain viable.

What would you recommend to fully kill everything off?

[Boggers]

Drop it in a bucket of bleach/ muriatic acid/ OR peroxide should work just fine. 

[Water Dog]

Bleach will kill everything.  But you must also rinse it with a lot of Prime or dry out the rock thoroughly to get rid of all the chlorine in the rock.  However, if it’s Dinos, then just treating the rock won’t eradicate it fron your tank unfortunately as it’s probably already in the sand bed and on other surfaces in the tank.  

[Luckeones]

14 hours ago, Water Dog said:

Bleach will kill everything.  But you must also rinse it with a lot of Prime or dry out the rock thoroughly to get rid of all the chlorine in the rock.  However, if it’s Dinos, then just treating the rock won’t eradicate it fron your tank unfortunately as it’s probably already in the sand bed and on other surfaces in the tank.  

Would there be a way to kill everything off that is in the sand? The tank is pretty much bare and I would be able to take everything out.

[Water Dog]

If you can take everything out, then treat the rock properly (bleach it and let it properly dry out), toss-the sand / replace with new sand and do a complete system reboot (clean and dry out the tank and all equipment).  Dino’s are not an easy thing to deal with.  Unfortunately, many a reefkeeper has left the hobby because of the scourge of dino’s.   A big dino outbreak 8 months ago is why I’m upgrading from my Biocube 29 to my rimless 57.

[corey01]

just my input here but if your outside temps are freezing and you put your rock outside the freezing and expansion of the macro amounts of water that have permeated through the rock will reduce it to dust.

I did this accidentally a few years ago. the rock held its shape, but when picked up and any force applied to it at all it simply broke into very small pieces. could crush those pieces to dust in my hand without any real effort. you would be just as effective putting the rock in a tote or a bucket and storing it in your basement for about a week or so. freezing isn't necessary and will probably ruin your rock.

[Water Dog]

I actually just thought of another thing regarding dino treatment.  If doing a full breakdown and reboot...  subjecting everything  to multiple freshwater dips would supposedly eradicate the dinos as well.  From my reading, apparently the osmotic shock from going from saltwater to freshwater will rupture the cell walls and kill the dinos according to the extensive dino treatment threads on both RC and R2R.

[Clown79]

Freezing the rock will kill everything.

 

If it doesn't freeze you will have die off from sitting out of the water for too long.

 

There is another method that many use and recommend.

 

Remove the rock, scrub it with a new toothebrush to remove the algae. Dip in a bucket of sw. 

Dip it in a hydrogen peroxide (3%) and water mixture.

Rinse in sw and return to tank.

 

Some do spot treatments of peroxide in their tank but if the rocks are infested, its best to do it the other way.

 

 

[Water Dog]

6 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Freezing the rock will kill everything.

 

If it doesn't freeze you will have die off from sitting out of the water for too long.

 

There is another method that many use and recommend.

 

Remove the rock, scrub it with a new toothebrush to remove the algae. Dip in a bucket of sw. 

Dip it in a hydrogen peroxide (3%) and water mixture.

Rinse in sw and return to tank.

 

Some do spot treatments of peroxide in their tank but if the rocks are infested, its best to do it the other way.

 

 

 

Although I agree that those methods will work for GHA, the OP has dinos, a different beast altogether.  Ask me how I know...

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, Water Dog said:

 

Although I agree that those methods will work for GHA, the OP has dinos, a different beast altogether.  Ask me how I know...

Crap. I totally missed that. I have no idea why I thought it was gha?