Resetting Live Rock from Palys

[millticket]

How porous is the rock? Whatever you do... use bleach, let it sit out in the rain, contaminates could seep deep inside the rock.

I too have had some prize-shaped rock that I didn't want to lose and had the pale green paly infestation. I soaked them in a 5gal bucket with a ton of kalkwasser solution that looked like milk..... the dKH on the solution must have been 40, 50 or more. It Alkalinity burned the pys but took like a good month of soaking

I'd say i have about 30 lbs of old marco rock. It's original dry rock from when i started the tank almost 8 years ago. I basically placed it outside on the porch in a plastic container with a lid. I do have some kalk i could use or citric acid and it could just sit outside over the winter. I just want those organic toxins to break down safely.

 

[Lasse]

I still think i somehow managed to get a mild case of poisoning. Short after working in the tank, i had a runny nose and sneezing a lot. I didn't think much of it, but then i woke up at 3am with terrible cold chills and then woke up at 5am sweating to death. I'm fine now, but it's scary i either got a mild case of the poisoning or Covid..... symptoms are very similar.

It sounds like my experiences after moving 300 Kg of stone with palys - and it was 19 years ago - long before covid. Ended up in hospital. Observe your hands - especially there you have small wounds - look for brown or infected areas for some days.

I also use the method with freezing nowadays.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[millticket]

How porous is the rock? Whatever you do... use bleach, let it sit out in the rain, contaminates could seep deep inside the rock.

I too have had some prize-shaped rock that I didn't want to lose and had the pale green paly infestation. I soaked them in a 5gal bucket with a ton of kalkwasser solution that looked like milk..... the dKH on the solution must have been 40, 50 or more. It Alkalinity burned the palys but took like a good month of soaking

Amazing how stubborn these green palys are.

Burning them off with a propane torch also works....but man o man you need to be outside with a breeze and a serious mask on and know what you are doing and which way the wind is blowing

Dumb question, do i just use a little bleach then dilute it with RO water then pour over the rock and let sit for how long?

 

[millticket]

It sounds like my experiences after moving 300 Kg of stone with palys - and it was 19 years ago - long before covid. Ended up in hospital. Observe your hands - especially there you have small wounds - look for brown or infected areas for some days.

I also use the method with freezing nowadays.

Sincerely Lasse

Yeah i think this was a mild case for me as I was just fine until messing with my tank/rocks. I don't have any cuts thankfully but my basement did have that smell to it. It's hard to describe it, but it's a very distinctive smell that comes from when palys/zoas are exposed to air. I did open several windows to let the basement air out. In retrospect, it probably would have been smarter to have a partially filled container and placed the rocks in it so they were submerged for the entire process, my guess is in allowing them to come into contact with the air and them being stressed it exposed me to the toxin.

 

[ZoWhat]

I do have some kalk i could use or citric acid and it could just sit outside over the winter.

> Kalk is a "base"
> Critic acid is an "acid"
They would cancel each other out on the pH scale

I would go with a high "base" made of very milky kalk water. Problem is outside it may freeze which could be a good thing idk. Im not a chemist

 

[millticket]

> Kalk is a "base"
> Critic acid is an "acid"
They would cancel each other out on the pH scale

I would go with a high "base" made of very milky kalk water. Problem is outside it may freeze which could be a good thing idk. Im not a chemist

Well i decided to give it a bleach bath. I found an old BRS video showing the process i figured this might be just as good as kalk. Here's hoping to leaving it for the next week to breakdown all those organics

 

[millticket]

Update and Question:

So my rock has been sitting outside in the bleach solution for almost two weeks now. When is a good time to take it out and power wash the organics off and do another bleach soak?

Also, i got my BRS shipment in and am doing my own little DIY NSA scape. I'm please with the progress thus far, I had to stop to order more mortar. I'm using the Nyos reef cement which is a bit tricky to work with but rock solid once dry. It's 10 inches tall, 12 inches wide & depth

 

[millticket]

I apologize for not scraping my glass but I’m so excited how these rocks turned out. I’ll never go back to “stacking rocks” again. I think once my rock outside is void of life I’m going to clean it up and repeat this process for the left hand side of the tank. All in all I ordered about 50lbs of Marco rock and order one large shelf rock from Brs that actually broke in shipment to give me a small piece which I ended up using to create the second island.

 

[millticket]

Emptied out the container today and it didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would. The palys were still attached somewhat abd I didn’t want to mess with pealing them off so I filled it back up and gonna do another round of bleach. Any idea of how long play toxins will persist?