base rock

[qdog425]

i have a question. i bought 120 lbs of dead live rock fro my lfs for fifty cents a lb. he said that all i had to do was put the rock in a clean trash can with bleach to kill off the rest of the dead stuff, and then put in fresh water to get rid the the chlorine on the rock. i did what he said and the rotten smell of the rock is gone. then i hosed it off with fresh water and put in plastic lugs with fresh water. my question is does the bleach stay in the rock, which i'm sure will cause problems in my tank? i know all the dead coral pieces you can buy have been bleached but i need to know if my lfs gave my the right way to do it. my tank is a 75 gallon fish only tank, that has now just cycled. any advise would be great.

thanks
qdog

 

[Gman]

What I would do is treat the water the rocks arein now with amquell or or somthing like that, that will nutralize the chlorine which is what bleach is. If you are still unsure as to wether or not the bleach is out give it a double dose or buy a test kit for chlorine.(waste of $$ imo) When I was doing fresh water I would always use a mild chlorine/water mix to cleanout my quarintine tank after ick.

 

[ostrow]

But the rock is more pourous, gman, and he is giong to set up a reef tank.

I would not have done this. But since you spend quite a bit of change, I'd rinse SUPER thoroughly, then rinse three more times SUPER thoroughly. Then I'd probably leave the rock in a well, well aerated place, space them out, and leave them to air dry a week or so, allowing them to dry on all surfaces.

I'd then rinse probably twice again.

Amquel or Prime or something in fairly good amounts would be a good idea too at the last stage.

I'd spring for the test in this case, personally. You really don't want the headache. You have 60lbs of rock there, and that is a lot of bleach that can muck up your tank but good IMO.

Wonder what GL thinks...

While I know there will be some obnoxious types who will scream, criticize, etc, it may well be worth posting the same quesiton on wetweb or reefcentral to see what they think...

 

[ginamoore]

you say your tank has just cycled, do you have (living) live rock in the tank yet?
base rock is good for a tank that is already set up and already has bactera built up. if you dont already have live rock get some! before you add fish!

 

[ostrow]

I was assuming what ginamoore said, but to reinforce it.

You can use all base rock as a start. Get a few good pieces of really good live rock with coralline all over and critters hiding inside. Best place is from an established tank (not a store), or a private small store that is dedicated to coral and rock propagation.

Strategically place these around the tank, and the base rock will color up and liven up in a few weeks.