Second hand rock

[PotatoPig]

I got a good quantity (maybe 100lbs) of second hand rock for free from a long dead tank.

The previous owner had basically let the last foot of water evaporate so the whole lot were encased in salt crystals and so on.

They’re now in my garage in a brute can after several rounds of rinsing and will be cured.

I’m setting up a new tank - what should I expect to do to this rock to “rehabilitate” it so it’s suitable for use?

Dip in bleach, vinegar, mutation acid?

Or just leave and rinse and cure?

 

[Fish Fan]

In this situation, I favor a bleach cure. This article has more info:
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...KOoMAdKN1HKOKp72AUl0MyLaoTRXMalHpTU8kEMqBX5b8

Good luck!

 

[dank.reefer]

I got a good quantity (maybe 100lbs) of second hand rock for free from a long dead tank.

The previous owner had basically let the last foot of water evaporate so the whole lot were encased in salt crystals and so on.

They’re now in my garage in a brute can after several rounds of rinsing and will be cured.

I’m setting up a new tank - what should I expect to do to this rock to “rehabilitate” it so it’s suitable for use?

Dip in bleach, vinegar, mutation acid?

Or just leave and rinse and cure?

I just cycle it and go. You will have an initial phosphate spike due to the dead organics in the rock but this should clear. I have bleached rock in the past and IMO it isn't worth it. It just makes it take longer for the rock to mature. This picture is a tank started and cycled with dirty old dried rock then boosted with TBS live sand. The tank is 6 months old.

This tank was also started on old dirty dry rock in the cryptic zone. This tank is 2.5 years old.

All you are doing IMO by bleaching the rock is making it take longer for your tank to mature.

 

[PotatoPig]

This is the best thing about reefing - for every topic there’s a clear and unambiguous consensus on the right way to do things

 

[slingfox]

Put the rocks in some saltwater and let it soak for a day or two then test the phosphate levels. I got second hand rock which had been cleaned but they still leached massive amounts of phosphates. A few rounds of lanthanum chloride and GFO fixed the issue.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Personally I would bleach the nasty rocks.

 

[PotatoPig]

Personally I would bleach the nasty rocks.

I’m leaning that way - particularly as this was from an estate sale so way to ask the owner how they ran their system… Though there are the remains of tube worms on the rocks so chances are at least they didn’t run a FOWLR with copper.

Looks like that had coraline though so maybe they did a decent job.

 

[dank.reefer]

You can also just test for copper to be safe. I don't think that bleach will take that away. if you do test positive you can use cuprisorb

 

[mcarroll]

I got a good quantity (maybe 100lbs) of second hand rock for free from a long dead tank.

The previous owner had basically let the last foot of water evaporate so the whole lot were encased in salt crystals and so on.

They’re now in my garage in a brute can after several rounds of rinsing and will be cured.

I’m setting up a new tank - what should I expect to do to this rock to “rehabilitate” it so it’s suitable for use?

Dip in bleach, vinegar, mutation acid?

Or just leave and rinse and cure?

Let is sit in the ocean for 3-4 years. ;)

But seriously, unless you're just wanting the cheap rock because of budget replace it with live rock. It's not really worth it unless you don't have a choice.

That said, there's no good reason for crazy curing recipes.....just leave it heated, in the dark with good flow. I would throw in a hermit crab or two and **a little** food every once in a while.

After a few months it should be safe to use.....it will just be an active bio-filter like bio-balls or colored gravel on an old-school UGF. It will never be live rock, as in Live Rock from the ocean.

Holler if that distinction doesn't make sense.

 

[PotatoPig]

You can also just test for copper to be safe. I don't think that bleach will take that away. if you do test positive you can use cuprisorb

Digging through my old supplies I just found I have a Hanna copper checker with in-date test kits! So that’s fortuitous

 

[PotatoPig]

Let is sit in the ocean for 3-4 years. ;)

But seriously, unless you're just wanting the cheap rock because of budget replace it with live rock. It's not really worth it unless you don't have a choice.

That said, there's no good reason for crazy curing recipes.....just leave it heated, in the dark with good flow. I would throw in a hermit crab or two and **a little** food every once in a while.

After a few months it should be safe to use.....it will just be an active bio-filter like bio-balls or colored gravel on an old-school UGF. It will never be live rock, as in Live Rock from the ocean.

Holler if that distinction doesn't make sense.

Oh, I’m under no illusion that this is “ocean live rock” even if it appears to have come from the ocean originally - eg the acro skeleton.

I’m using this in place of Caribsea Dry rock - similar to how I last set my old tank up and I was happy with the results of that combined with seeding with smaller quantities of actual ocean live rock.

All this stuff is going to be covered with living things sooner or later in the tank anyway.

 

[Fish Fan]

Digging through my old supplies I just found I have a Hanna copper checker with in-date test kits! So that’s fortuitous

Word of caution, the Hanna Copper Checker is not considered accurate at low levels. It's accurate only near the therapeutic level of copper, around 2.25 ppm. False positives in the low end of the scale have been noted. Here's some posts from Randy on this:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/test-kits.1149748/post-14205617
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/trying-to-remove-copper-help-please.1132798/post-14075269
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/icp-says-i-have-copper.1138746/post-14023627

I hope that helps!

 

[PotatoPig]

Word of caution, the Hanna Copper Checker is not considered accurate at low levels. It's accurate only near the therapeutic level of copper, around 2.25 ppm. False positives in the low end of the scale have been noted. Here's some posts from Randy on this:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/test-kits.1149748/post-14205617
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/trying-to-remove-copper-help-please.1132798/post-14075269
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/icp-says-i-have-copper.1138746/post-14023627

I hope that helps!

That’s good to know! My hope is it’s zero - Im optimistic as the tank clearly had inverts at some point.