Tank restart, question about live rock. Heellpp!

[Naterade86]

OK fellow reefers, It has been some time since I have posted but I am looking for advice. I lost my entire 65 gallon reef almost a year ago to a power outage. Everything died and I was devastated.

Fast forward to today, I have been rebuilding my supply of materials and I am going to be starting all over again.

I have one question on where to go from here, I have 50 lbs. of live rock that when the tank collapsed I placed in buckets with RODI water and sealed them with silicone. How do I get these rocks ready to put in my tank once I get the water and filtration set up. Without creating a hell storm of bacteria and thus making the process way harder.

I have heard many methods, some evolving the use of an acid.

Please advise me and the best way to get back to my reefer glory with these darn rocks.

Thanks .

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[gogo7]

acid? why? don't do that.
wash the rock off, scrub any debris and do your setup like normal.use whatever water you want..you still have to go through the cycle process.... a month or so.... there will be bacteria, unless you use something like acid....

[der_wille_zur_macht]

After being stored in freshwater, the rock is essentially dead from a marine perspective.

There will be a lot of organic waste on the rock, from the dead bacteria, algae, and other life. You need to remove that organic matter, otherwise you're basically dumping nutrients into your tank.

Scrub or pressure wash the rock, get as much material removed as possible. Once you think it's clean, you can soak it in some fresh RO/DI and see if it dumps any nutrients into the water (use a freshwater nitrate and phosphate test kit). If it seems OK, it's basically equivalent to starting with clean dry rock.

Start your tank as usual and seed with a source of bacteria and other micro-life (rock or sand from an established tank is always a good idea).

There are definitely aggressive methods to get the rock clean, including muriatic acid, bleach, etc- unless you can't get it clean otherwise, I would just use plain water and lots of scrubbing/rinsing. If you try that, and during the FW soak the nutrients go way up, you may want to try an acid bath. It basically removes the top layer of the rock, along with any remaining organics. It's a good method if you need it, but overkill if you don't. Go give it a try to manually wash the rock in plain water, and if that doesn't work, let us know.

[Naterade86]

Okay thanks that is what I will do. Now in the tank itself. I have akot of white hard calcium like built up where the scoreline algae used to be. Do I remove/scrape that as well or leave is and just clean it's surface. Also what should inuse to clean the inside and overflow of tank. Water, water and bleach. Etc

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[DreadCapn]

Use vinegar for cleaning, it will cut right through almost all of that stuff.

[Naterade86]

Originally Posted by der_wille_zur_macht

After being stored in freshwater, the rock is essentially dead from a marine perspective.

There will be a lot of organic waste on the rock, from the dead bacteria, algae, and other life. You need to remove that organic matter, otherwise you're basically dumping nutrients into your tank.

Scrub or pressure wash the rock, get as much material removed as possible. Once you think it's clean, you can soak it in some fresh RO/DI and see if it dumps any nutrients into the water (use a freshwater nitrate and phosphate test kit). If it seems OK, it's basically equivalent to starting with clean dry rock.

Start your tank as usual and seed with a source of bacteria and other micro-life (rock or sand from an established tank is always a good idea).

There are definitely aggressive methods to get the rock clean, including muriatic acid, bleach, etc- unless you can't get it clean otherwise, I would just use plain water and lots of scrubbing/rinsing. If you try that, and during the FW soak the nutrients go way up, you may want to try an acid bath. It basically removes the top layer of the rock, along with any remaining organics. It's a good method if you need it, but overkill if you don't. Go give it a try to manually wash the rock in plain water, and if that doesn't work, let us know.

Thanks alot man I will be starting to do this tonight. I will keep all posted.. Wish me luck

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