Cooking Rocks.

reef keeper

Super Active Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2014
Location
Hamilton, Ontario
Well after 2 weeks and the small bottle of agent green the pros is down to .21 in the hairball rocks and in the rocks from kijiji its dropped now to .17.

By the time the tank gets here it should be down to below .1 which I can handle with gfo during the cycle. I'll update this again after a few more hits of LC
 

Pistol

Super Active Member
Donor
Joined
Aug 16, 2012
Location
Corunna
I would be concerned about bubble algae, the rocks could be loaded with spores if there was any present in the original tank, I would bleach and acid bath then cook to make sure.
 

Pistol

Super Active Member
Donor
Joined
Aug 16, 2012
Location
Corunna
I don't know if that would be enough to kill the spores, I got some rock from a fellow reefer that had bubble algae and I soaked and scrubbed it with hot tap water then cooked it in a dark tub for about 2 months and a month after I put it in my tank it was covered with bubble algae. There was no bubble algae in the tank prior.
 

heath

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2012
Location
Woodstock, Ontario
I don't know if that would be enough to kill the spores, I got some rock from a fellow reefer that had bubble algae and I soaked and scrubbed it with hot tap water then cooked it in a dark tub for about 2 months and a month after I put it in my tank it was covered with bubble algae. There was no bubble algae in the tank prior.
that's suck big time and I'm sure that they told you that there was bubble algae on it, ;)
 

AdInfinitum

Super Active Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Location
Thorndale, Ontario
I don't know if that would be enough to kill the spores, I got some rock from a fellow reefer that had bubble algae and I soaked and scrubbed it with hot tap water then cooked it in a dark tub for about 2 months and a month after I put it in my tank it was covered with bubble algae. There was no bubble algae in the tank prior.

Absolutely right...one of the roles of spores is to survive extreme adverse conditions. Like drying out and baking in the tropical Sun, even to survive time in animals digestive systems. If you want to start rock free of spores a muriatic acid bath is a must do to remove the surface layer of rock that spores may be embedded in (the spores may actually be impervious to the acid too but can be physically sloughed off).

However the other way of thinking is that all of these things will eventually get into your system anyway and a well balanced system will prevent any one thing from taking over. Back in the day...we filled our systems with real live rock from the ocean that came with all manner of things in it from algae to gobies and small eels so the micro fauna was wild, varied and out of our control.

I don't know if there is a "right" answer...there are so many brilliant "natural" type Reef systems but most of the hardcore SPS growers now tend to be done in the tightly controlled artificial "better than nature" model ie Darrylv's tank or many of the Zeo systems. Like so many things, I think you need to choose a path and not deviate too far from one or the other.
 
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