reconstituting live rock.

S

sublime-1

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Hey guys,


I'm starting my 120 back up after a 4 year hiatus, and have a question.


I got some rock off a fellow reefer, that had for all intents and purposes, been cooked. (when I went to pick it up, it had been in a 55g bucket in the dallas heat, and the water was 100 degrees F.)


Anyway, there's still some purple coralline growth on the rock, in small speckles, although nothing living seen moving in or around. maybe a few spongey type growths that are mostly bleached out.



So I am going to use this in my 120. It's about 95lbs. And it's nice looking Fijian coral skeleton.


Can I add like 10-20 lbs of good live rock to this to "seed" it back to hosting inhabitants ?
 
Yes, you can. I think what you might want to do though is clean the rock with bleach and muratic acid baths before trying to cycle it and seed it.
 
Might also look into some turbo start 9000. I used that to see dead rock in my seahorse tank and worked great.
 
I'd bleach and acid bath it. No telling how much PO4 got absorbed while it was sitting there and might as well get a clean start.
 
By the time I read the suggestion in acid bath I had already put this in 120 gallons of fresh water

I'm gonna cycle it for a couple months and keep an eye on it. I have no rush to stock it so I plan to get a rock steady cycle and just keep an eye on it. I put a 4" dsb in it so it's gonna take a while to populate anyway
 
I typically only bleach rocks, then let them sit out, soak in RO water, sit out, soak, etc. What additional benefit does the acid do that the bleach does not?
 
I'd wash it even though you already put it in. There will be unwanted things pop up well beyond the few months of cycle you plan to do.
 
Bleach only kills what is on the surface. The acid wash helps remove the organics and dissolves away some of the rock, including outer layers that have absorbed phosphate, chemical treatments like copper, etc. Anything stuck on that outer layer that gets dissolved (like dead or dying algae) also comes off with it so that it will not continue to rot or release stuff. Of course, the newly exposed surface could also contain some phosphates but I've found that there is a lot less that leaches out after the acid wash. A side benefit of the acid wash is that it will typically really open up the rock and make it a lot more porous. You lose some rock in the process by virtue of the fact that it is being dissolved but to me, the benefits are well worth it. I've got some details about my experiences with the process in my build log.
 
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