Cleaning old live rock

Omakoshark

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I used the 1:10 ratio for bleach cleaning old live rock. Long story short, the rock has been sitting in the solution in my garage for about a month now. Is it still possible to dry and rinse to put back into the reef?
 

A+Aquatics

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@Omakoshark absolutely. With a little patience and some work, you'll be able to use this rock in no time.

Simply, place a small pump/powerhead (or do water changes) in the container (the lowest spot possible for the highest stirring ability) - you want a nice amount of water flow. Begin performing 20%-50% water changes weekly, exactly like you would on your main display / main system.

You can either elect to use RODI doing water changes or use fully mixed salt for water changes. Either way, the goal is to bring the water chemistry (Check your water for runoff of the chemicals you used and leaching of whatever may be in the rocks porous areas) to a healthy place. You basically are aiming for new, healthy, unadulterated rock that you can use anywhere.

Refreshing the water with water changes eventually will bring your rock to exactly where you need it in order to use it for any projects.

There are generally more ways than one to do this, however, this is one method that is a simple and mostly hands off procedure that rewards you with usable rock.

We will be treating around 500 LBS of "Old-Dead-Base-Rock" I will make sure we put together a small writeup on how we achieve what it is I have described above.

Good luck my friend ;Joyful
 
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Omakoshark

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Thank you! One question: is this to make it live again? Because my interest was just to add some more reef, and let it become live overtime.
 

A+Aquatics

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Thank you! One question: is this to make it live again? Because my interest was just to add some more reef, and let it become live overtime.
Of course, you are welcome. It is our pleasure to help ;Happy ;Penguin

The goal is to soak the rock in clean (RODI/marine grade) water so the water will soak up all the "yucky-yucks" from the rock and as you do water changes over time (some may take weeks, some may take months or even a year), it will change the rock to an acceptable and usable piece of rock that can be stored clean or used to add base rock for biological purposes anywhere throughout the system or in your main display for coral and other livestock to utilize.
 

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