Cooking Rock This Week (1 Viewer)

[Jager]

Planning on doing a rock cookout this week/weekend.

I have about 175 pounds in my 125 that i will be nuking, if anyone would care to stop by have a beer or water and drop a rock in the witches pot, just let me know i always welcome a good conversation.

I live in NE Minneapolis, off 37th Ave NE and Johnson.

Picking up the Muriatic Acid tonight.

 

[kjdeut]

I have a plastic tub I used when I cooked mine that you can use if you need one.

Ken

 

[Jager]

Id love to borrow it, I was going to get something at home depot.

Thanks Ken!

Ill pm you in a lil bit

 

[Jager]

starting this afternoon

Gunna pic profile it so we can have a how to with pics still in tact.

Thanks for letting me borrow the tub Ken!

 

[Jager]

Got about 125/200lbs done yesterday will post pics soon

 

[TheNewton]

I guess I'm a little confused on terms and you can help clear this up. I thought acid washing and bleaching rock was different that "cooking" rock. I could be completely wrong but I thought cooking rock was around a 2 month process of keeping the rock in a dark enclosed tub with heat, circulation and frequent water changes. I have been away from the hobby for a while so I guess as always terms and their meaning can change over time.

 

[Jager]

Ive never heard of putting rock in an enclosed dark room for 2 months, and would never do that.

I use the term "cooking" personally because when i acid wash the rock it looks like i am cooking it in a witches pot, no cross reference intended, and i guess if its a concern we can reserve the right to use the term "cooking" for those that want to isolate their rock for 2 months.

I also use the term "nuking" and "mudbath" in correlation with acid washing

Sorry to confuse.

 

[kingranchu]

Waiting for some pics :greenguy:

 

[odie]

Are you going to use bleach also or just the acid wash?

 

[kjdeut]

Your welcome glad you can use it, tube has been sitting around since I cooked my rock 2 years ago.

There is another method for curing rock that does involve leaving it sit for a long time, if I remember correctly. It was a hot topic 3-4 years ago and I do think it was called cooking.

Ken

 

[psulion]

Many years ago, before the acid wash became more popular, I would put skanky rock in a plastic tub with saltwater and sealed it up for a month or two. When you took the lid off,it smelled really bad but all the algae and undesirables were gone. I would resoak in fresh saltwater for another couple of weeks and it was pretty much ready to go. The acid wash is a lot faster.

 

[Jager]

Supplies

Muriatic Acid

Small tank of mixed saltwater for random corals and snails i find on the rock before i nuke it

Towels and some Five Finger Deathpunch on the IPOD

Place the rock in the tub

Fill with 10g water from the hose

Pour in 1g Muriatic Acid

Immediatley after Muriatic Acid is in it starts to bubble

5 Min after acid is put in

Let sit for about 20-30 min (untill it stops bubbling)
Pour more water in from the hose, clean up nastyness with hose and pour our tub contents washing away with hose.

With high pressure, spray down each piece of Live Rock individually, getting all crusty gunky nasty crap off them.

Place on towel and let dry

We got about 125 lbs done with 3 gallons of muriatic acid, could have done more im sure but we didnt fill the tub up with rock. We will have 1 load left to do later this week after the rest of the livestock is out of the 125.

 

[Kepler]

It just sounds weird that the brand of acid is made by a company called sunnyside :gay1:

 

[wheresscotty]

Pardon my ignorance, but why would one do this to their rock?
Doesn't this kill everything that we strive to get in the rock, coraline, pods, stars, worms, bacteria, sponges, etc? It just seems like it is a waste of money to buy live rock only to turn it back into bases rock and have to re-seed everything. There is most likely a reason to do this, but it just escapes me.

:goldfish:

 

[kjdeut]

Because it also kills all the bad stuff.

 

[wheresscotty]

What could be so bad as to nuke all your rock though? Just curious, and confused.

 

[kjdeut]

Hair algae is one, aptasia another. If you get rock from another persons tank you may cook it to make sure you dont bring any unwanted pests into yours. I cooked rock that I had in an old tank which was torn down before I put the rock in the new tank.

 

[kjdeut]

The good stuff will grow back.

 

[wheresscotty]

kk, thanks for the insight.

 

[Jager]

not only does it kill the nusiance algae, but it also clear out the detritus that builds up inside the rock, kills any critters you dont want on it like those little white stars and of course aiptaisia, bristle worms, and if you have flat worms those as well.

It also wipes out certain corals that you may regret getting such as Xenia, star polyps, cloves, some zoanthids.

It is not hard to start up the biological filtration and restart the life on the rock now a days, less than a week and its full blown live rock if you do things right.

it is a debate, but some are firm in their beliefe that eventually your porous live rock will become non porous due to detritus and dead biological build up. some believe this has aided in some random and unexplained tank crashing.

No one said you had to clean or "nuke" or "cook" all of your rock, most people dont actually. Just a few pieces here and there, kind of cycle it in order to maintain their live rock's ecosystem.

I, on the other hand, am taking down our 125g system in preparation for our upcomming move and putting up a 29g system to house the livestock we are keeping. The 29g will be barebottom with no rock, so i have ~200 pounds of live rock that wont be used again for 2-3 months or so, what better time to clean every piece we have than now!