Is this rock safe to use?

[jcroall]

Hi all. I’m in kind of a unique situation and would like some help about the best way to go about it. long story short about 6 years ago I ended up with a full 300+ gallon setup. I had a couple large bins of rock from it that I had no room to store it so I dumped it out in the desert. Fast forward to no and I need rock. I spent the past week looking for it and today I finally found it. My question is after 6ish years in the desert would it be safe to use in a reef tank? I know I need to thoroughly wash and cure it but is there anything else I need to do to make it safe? Or is it just a bad idea to use it at all? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Subsea]

@jcroall
I see this is your first post. Welcome to r2r.

Yes, it’s safe to use. Are you setting up the 300G tank? How do you plan to cycle your new tank?

 

[mfinn]

Hi all. I’m in kind of a unique situation and would like some help about the best way to go about it. long story short about 6 years ago I ended up with a full 300+ gallon setup. I had a couple large bins of rock from it that I had no room to store it so I dumped it out in the desert. Fast forward to no and I need rock. I spent the past week looking for it and today I finally found it. My question is after 6ish years in the desert would it be safe to use in a reef tank? I know I need to thoroughly wash and cure it but is there anything else I need to do to make it safe? Or is it just a bad idea to use it at all? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Welcome to R2R.

I've dumped rock out behind my shop in the past and then years later gone out and picked through the pile to find nice pieces to use.
I do know in my wet (ish) climate we get a lot of bugs and weeds that make stuff like this their home.
Some times I've had to bleach clean them and others just a pressure wash to remove detritus.

As long as there wasn't any chemicals dumped in the area, and once cleaned it should be fine.

 

[jcroall]

@jcroall
I see this is your first post. Welcome to r2r.

Yes, it’s safe to use. Are you setting up the 300G tank? How do you plan to cycle your new tank?

Thank you glad to be here.
No that tank was acrylic and was in such bad shape the entire front panel was hazy with deep scratches. I didn’t want to deal with it so I sold it. The rock would be going in my dad’s 180 that’s been running for 4 or 5 years. We just decided we need to redo his rocks since his current scape is so narrow there’s not a lot of places to put coral.

 

[Bucrob]

I would definitely wash the rocks off to get any gunk or bugs out, potentially bleach and let it sit in a controlled environment for a little bit then rinse it off again.

 

[jcroall]

Welcome to R2R.

I've dumped rock out behind my shop in the past and then years later gone out and picked through the pile to find nice pieces to use.
I do know in my wet (ish) climate we get a lot of bugs and weeds that make stuff like this their home.
Some times I've had to bleach clean them and others just a pressure wash to remove detritus.

As long as there wasn't any chemicals dumped in the area, and once cleaned it should be fine

I dumped the rock along a river about 150 - 200 feet from the river. Our dirt here is mostly clay but being by the river there was a lot of sand in the area as well. I highly doubt there were any chemicals dumped nearby given where is was. There was however some construction debris that was dumped throughout the area, mostly just broken concrete and asphalt. However our dirt here is red from high concentrations of iron oxide. I pressure washed all the rock thoroughly last night and most of the rock cleaned up nicely is looks like there are parts of it that are stained red from the dirt. Should I be worried about the rocks leeching at all? Specifically iron oxide from the dirt? Would a bleach/ muriatic acid bath fix this? Thanks for your help!

 

[mfinn]

Not sure about the red oxide stain.
If you did a mutation acid bath, you might be able strip off enough of the outside layer of the rock enough to remove it.
Bleach bath might change the color, but not remove rock.