Advice on My Mission to Clean Old Dry Rock

[Young@Heart]

I have some rock from a previous build that I removed and let set for almost a year in saltwater in my garage - Yikes! - I used gloves and a mask before I touched it - LOL. I cleaned the Container and am doing the Bleach Curing method described in the "Bleach Curing Dry Rock for a Saltwater Reef Tank" video from BRS. At the conclusion of the week, I was thinking of rinsing the rock off with the hose (city water). placing in clean container with RODI (15 Gallons) and a couple cap fulls of Prime. - Let set for 24 hours and then lay out to dry in the Sun - I live in Phoenix, so the drying should not take to long. Question: what are your thoughts on my plan? My end goal is to use most of this rock in my new 55 Gallon build.

 

[dwair]

That will definitely work, I would personally take out each piece of rock and inspect it fully. Scrub off everything, careful if you encounter some old dried corals or what not, scrubbing zoa's for instance could be harmful to your health.

I personally prefer muratic acid. When I last did this, I put all the rock in a 40g Brute Trash Can, filled it up where it was covering the rock and added about another 3" of water above that, then dumped in an entire gallon of muratic acid, let it sit for about 24-36 hours. I have pics where the bubbles overflowed the trash can all over my carport lol.

Once that was done, I dumped the trash can, sprayed off the rock with the garden hose, let them sit in the sun for 2-3 days. I then inspected each rock and scrubbed off anything that didn't just dissolve with the acid and for me I did another acid bath (this one probably wasn't needed, I was being safe). After letting the rock dry yet again, I let them soak in a different trash can full of RO/DI water for 3 days, took them out, let them dry for another few days and into the tank they went.

Alot of people do bleach instead though and from what I've seen it works.

 

[cvrle1]

I personally prefer muratic acid. When I last did this, I put all the rock in a 40g Brute Trash Can, filled it up where it was covering the rock and added about another 3" of water above that, then dumped in an entire gallon of muratic acid, let it sit for about 24-36 hours. I have pics where the bubbles overflowed the trash can all over my carport lol.

You probably used really diluted mix of water to acid if you let is sit in there for 24-36 hours. Usually when 10:1 ratio is used, it sits in there for maybe 1 hour. Some people only have it in there for 15 minutes with higher acid concentration.

Few issues with muriatic acid. If you dont know what you are doing, it can be really dangerous to work with. You need a lot of safety gear as last thing you want is acid splashing on your skin or even worse in your eyes. You also dont want to breathe in those fumes. If proper mix of water to acid is used, you lose 10%-20% of your rock, as acid just eats it away. While it does give good results, to me risk and reward wasnt worth it. I used bleach and it worked out great, even thought it took about a week or 2 total.

 

[dwair]

You probably used really diluted mix of water to acid if you let is sit in there for 24-36 hours. Usually when 10:1 ratio is used, it sits in there for maybe 1 hour. Some people only have it in there for 15 minutes with higher acid concentration.

Few issues with muriatic acid. If you dont know what you are doing, it can be really dangerous to work with. You need a lot of safety gear as last thing you want is acid splashing on your skin or even worse in your eyes. You also dont want to breathe in those fumes. If proper mix of water to acid is used, you lose 10%-20% of your rock, as acid just eats it away. While it does give good results, to me risk and reward wasnt worth it. I used bleach and it worked out great, even thought it took about a week or 2 total.

It was diluted, I also agree 10000000% about PPE. Stuff is dangerous, but it works very well. The rock I had was extremely nasty looking, when I was done it was whiter than Marco Rock!