cooking rock and livestock

[foodworks]

Ok, I have decided to cook my phosphate loaded rock.
For those that have done this, what do you do with the palys and zoas attached to the
rocks? Frag some, lose some and hope for the best?

 

[MikeG]

you would need to frag them. To properly cook rock can take months in the dark doing frequent waterchanges to get rid of the built up organics.

 

[JayM]

why/how does phosphate saturated rock benefit from re-cooking?

 

[JohnK]

Good question. You need to cook the rock in acid to rid it of bound phsphate.

 

[madcow]

For Phosphate Randy recommends you use 1:10 diluted muriatic acid in water or straight vinegar

 

[foodworks]

I have read the various posts regarding muriatic and or vinegar and felt the jury was out on that and that the long term cooking was the the best way to rid. Does Randy have first hand knowledge of this? What did Randy do with his corals? It still appears I have to frag the little buggers too. Which seems tedious seeing as though some of these colonies are good sized.

Jay, there's a bunch of info out there regarding "cooking" rock. I have an algae issue that comes down to bound phos in the rock. It must be defeated!

 

[JohnK]

There is "cooking rock" to give dead organics a chance to basically rot out. This is what you are refering to.

If you're concerned about phophate that is bound to the surface of the rock, you need to dissolve the outer layer of the rock to get rid of the phosphate.

There is no way to do either of the above without killing anything alive in and on the rock.

"Randy" is Randy Holmes-Farley. He is a real chemist, and has written practically every chemistry related article that exists in the hobby literature.

 

[foodworks]

Dawn breaks over Marble Head
I misunderstood the diferences in the two procedures.
Thanks for the help!

 

[JayM]

John's point was kind of what I was getting at.....I didn't want you to remove your corals, go through the effort of cooking your rocks (just with water) and having you end up with the same phosphate issues.

that kind of frustration could drive someone out of the hobby.

 

[MikeG]

I didn't even notice the phosphate thing, I thought you were just looking to cook organic laden rock. I think others in this thread have it pretty well covered. With either procedure you would want to remove all corals before you start as they most likely won't survive.

 

[foodworks]

Thanks to all for the help. Going to get my fragging skills ready.