How long do you cure dry pukani?

[Ocelaris]

Thanks, I realize this is topic has been talked to death; I just hadn't see any chemistry regarding organic matter decomposition. I'm trying to think through the process of this rock coming to us and how the phosphates get out. I just hear a lot of "do this, it works" without a how or why...

Here's what I imagine happens, Locals mine random reefs, pulling up the rock and drying it on shore (plenty of starfish/eels etc... to prove this out). At that time there's no appreciable phosphates bound up in the rock (or minimal that I can imagine). We ship it to our houses and organic decomposition starts.

If that is true, then it seems to me that leaving the rock to stew in extremely high nutrient levels may bind to the rock and continue to leach for an unspecified amount of time in the future. I believe most people never change their water in the rock while it cures, thinking that will delay the nitrosomonas bloom etc... But I don't think you need that much nutrients to get the rock cycled, so I changed the water every few days (because it was making the entire house smell!) My thought process was organic nutrients are going into solution, and need to be exported some how; if I remove the water at it's worse, I'll be pulling the bulk of the nutrients out.

What I don't understand is the effect on an acid bath or bleach on organic molecules ahead of any actual cycling; i.e. does the bleach oxidize and come into solution easier which then can be removed? My gut feeling is you should be changing water frequently through the cycling of the rock to make sure it doesn't bind to the rock. Because my assumption is that the organic decaying material is responsible for the nutrients, not the actual mineral composition of the rock.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What I don't understand is the effect on an acid bath or bleach on organic molecules ahead of any actual cycling; i.e. does the bleach oxidize and come into solution easier which then can be removed? My gut feeling is you should be changing water frequently through the cycling of the rock to make sure it doesn't bind to the rock. Because my assumption is that the organic decaying material is responsible for the nutrients, not the actual mineral composition of the rock.

Bleach breaks many organics down into CO2, nitrate, phosphate, and the residue of the bleach (some alkalinity, sodium, etc.). So the organics can essentially disappear. I've soaked whole dead LPS corals in bleach and came back to find a pristine skeleton.

Acid strips off the outer layer of calcium carbonate, removing much of the bound phosphate as well. It doesn't appreciably break down most organics, but many will float off as the solids under them dissolve away.

For nasty rock, I recommend bleach then acid then water rinsing. :)

 

[JOKER]

I used bleach then later heard not to use bleach on the pukani. My rock seems ok, even some I have in the sump running now. Still some phosphate but not a lot. I will do some test tonight or tomorrow to see where im at. The sump actually has some nitrate so im thinking maybe I had enough die off to start the cycle, but im not sure. Last nitrate test showed 15 with no ammonia or anything added so far. Started a skimmer on this to see where im at. Maybe a bad idea but worth a shot. I have no ammonia with last test or nitrite.

 

[JOKER]

OK test in. 0 phosphate, hanna- nitrite out of range, hanna- nitrate 15-20, hanna. Ammonia 0. Could the cycle be started without introducing anything??

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I used bleach then later heard not to use bleach on the pukani. My rock seems ok, even some I have in the sump running now. Still some phosphate but not a lot. I will do some test tonight or tomorrow to see where im at. The sump actually has some nitrate so im thinking maybe I had enough die off to start the cycle, but im not sure. Last nitrate test showed 15 with no ammonia or anything added so far. Started a skimmer on this to see where im at. Maybe a bad idea but worth a shot. I have no ammonia with last test or nitrite.

Do you recall the reason why someone recomnended against bleach?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

OK test in. 0 phosphate, hanna- nitrite out of range, hanna- nitrate 15-20, hanna. Ammonia 0. Could the cycle be started without introducing anything??

If there is dead organic matter in the tank somehow, yes. :)

 

[JOKER]

BRS says it will never completely leave rock from what one poster said earlier. There could be some organic matter. I added some dry shelf rock that was somewhat clean. LOL

 

[Brian Kim]

Glad I found this thread as I was planning on using my recently purchase dry pukani from BRS. I had them soaked on a 15 gallon container with freshly made saltwater and this is what I got after 4 days ( 1st pic). Ammonia is somewhat lower (2nd pic) now that I performed a 100% w/c and added biospira but when I tested my phosphate today it was around 2.0 ppm. It seems it will take a long time and a lot of effort to rid of all the phosphate and the possibility of them leeching more phosphate in the future is a deal breaker.
Wish I had bought something else, now my new tank will be without seeing water for a few months.

 

[JOKER]

I actually have not checked mine lately, but will to see where im at. Mine has been sitting in brutes for some time now. I just do water changes as the water gets smelly.

 

[Ocelaris]

I actually have not checked mine lately, but will to see where im at. Mine has been sitting in brutes for some time now. I just do water changes as the water gets smelly.

I'm probably 6 months in with pukani and I'm at .04 or less like I have for a few months. Pukani definetly has plenty of organics but I'm not sure any more than other once live rock. If you want to kill all organics bleach it and soak, otherwise it'll dissipate, I'd suggest just keep up the water changes for some time and keep testing. The rock it's self isn't leaching, it's stuff near the surface inside the porous material which will eventually will get processed and land in the water column which you can then remove.

 

[Brian Kim]

Well, I've decided to just use them to cycle my new tank, I am going to be running bio pellet on one of my reactors 24/7 anyways and figure I just deal with phosphate as my tank progresses.

 

[Ocelaris]

I also ran a bio-pellet reactor as well for the first few months, but haven't since. Nitrates are at zero at this point, so that's my limiting factor. I also have a good chunk of Chaeto which is helping. But now I need some nitrates for my first coral introductions and am running GFO to bring the phosphates down. I may have to pull the Chaeto out as any nitrogen gets consumed quickly, but we'll see as I just added 2 clowns and a yellow tang, so there has been zero nutrient inputs for the past 6 months. I had a few spots of green hair algae and cyano at a few points, but that's gone now. I think Pukani gets a bad name for it's organics at the get go from people, but in the long run the porous rock serves as a tremendous filter so to me it's a net positive and I was lucky to make it through that stage. If you don't have a lot of export mechanisms at the beginning it may be an issue which may be difficult to fix in the long run, so I can see why people shy away from it; but some of the non-natural rock doesn't have as porous structure and while it may look good, not provide as much filtration value.

 

[Brian Kim]

Well, not sure if I did the right thing but I decided to go with the "better late than never" and "better safe than sorry"....I removed all my pukani rocks and now soaking them on vinegar and bleach with a pump for 24hrs [edit: not together, but one then the other; edited by Randy HF]. Going to use muriatic acid after that.
My tank is still running with my skimmer on and phosguard to removing whatever is left from the water, also preparing to do a 50% water change prior to reintroducing the rocks to the system. Guess I'll have to buy another bottle of Biospira to reseed the tank.

 

[Rick.45cal]

I started my 200 gallon zeovit tank with dry pukani. I spent the first two weeks soaking in DI water changed daily to try and pull as much of the organics out of the rocks. It worked, but was a very labor intensive process. My tank with 150lbs of pukani after 24 hours of water first hitting it smelled like Seaworld came over and used my tank for a toilet. After 2 weeks the water stayed pretty clean and had no smell so I changed it and added salt water. I gave it a day and then started the zeo reactor and started dosing bacteria and their carbon source. I tracked my tanks progress via watching my phosphates. It didn't take long for it to read undetectable phosporus on the ULR hanna tester.

Just use the nutrients in the rock to fuel the cycling process. Especially if you are planning on carbon dosing. Just my $.02

 

[Brian Kim]

I started my 200 gallon zeovit tank with dry pukani. I spent the first two weeks soaking in DI water changed daily to try and pull as much of the organics out of the rocks. It worked, but was a very labor intensive process. My tank with 150lbs of pukani after 24 hours of water first hitting it smelled like Seaworld came over and used my tank for a toilet. After 2 weeks the water stayed pretty clean and had no smell so I changed it and added salt water. I gave it a day and then started the zeo reactor and started dosing bacteria and their carbon source. I tracked my tanks progress via watching my phosphates. It didn't take long for it to read undetectable phosporus on the ULR hanna tester.

Just use the nutrients in the rock to fuel the cycling process. Especially if you are planning on carbon dosing. Just my $.02

I was literately going your route but read some horror stories about uncontrollable phosphate leaching from the rocks. I did purchase GFO, bio pellets and phosguard to combat/control it but I felt it would be easier to deal with it now with an acid bath then dealing with it on a long term, not to mention all the aftermath consequences associated with it...HA, diatom and cyano.

 

[Rick.45cal]

This is my tank only a couple hours after DI water hit the dry pukani rock. I decided to do this in tank, and I wouldn't again! Don't follow in my footsteps (aquarium is in the kitchen.) lol

This is a picture of the sump. This is a pretty good example of how MUCH organics are in the water . Keep in mind this was 0 TDS DI water only hours ago. I'm pretty sure my skimmer would have worked if it had been in there. Gross! That is also a completely overwhelmed bag of carbon floating in there. It didn't help the smell FYI!

 

[Rick.45cal]

I'll add my Nitrate and Phosphate graphs from my logbook on Apex so you guys can see what happened in the tank after saltwater was added. I find it interesting, maybe it will be useful to someone else. Nitrate tested with Salifert test kit, and Phosphate tested via Hanna ULR Phosphorus meter.

 

[Rick.45cal]

I was literately going your route but read some horror stories about uncontrollable phosphate leaching from the rocks. I did purchase GFO, bio pellets and phosguard to combat/control it but I felt it would be easier to deal with it now with an acid bath then dealing with it on a long term, not to mention all the aftermath consequences associated with it...HA, diatom and cyano.

Bleach and acid bath is a much wiser solution. After that i wouldn't worry too much and just use any excess organics to cycle the tank. My point is that you CAN do it the hard way too! LOL

 

[Brian Kim]

Bleach and acid bath is a much wiser solution. After that i wouldn't worry too much and just use any excess organics to cycle the tank. My point is that you CAN do it the hard way too! LOL

Yes, I know....just wanted to skip the hard way;)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Vinegar and bleach together?

BAD IDEA. Mixing acid and bleach will create chlorine gas.