Dry rock

Chrisnnemo

Non-member
I’ve done some research and like always I fall back on experience and advice I get from here. I have some rock from a setup I bought a year ago, it’s been sitting in a bucket dry since. I want to throw it back in the dt. Now I’m thinking I should prob clean it... best way? Also, after I clean it can I just throw it in or do I HAVE to cycle it? Or can I just throw it in even though it’s been sitting in a bucket dry for a year?
 
I’ve seen people go to extents to make sure their rock is clean before introducing to the tank. I usually just throw the rock in and then cycle the water for 2-3 weeks and have no issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If it's been dry for a while, almost everything should be dead, which is good enough for most people. I'm not sure which if any reef pests have the ability to produce eggs/spores that can survive being dry for this long. Cleaning it may be a good idea to reduce the amount of dead stuff that needs to decompose, thereby speeding up the curing process. You do want to cure it long enough that dead tissues decompose and release their nitrogen. (cycle it is not a great term to describe this process, there is no cycle happening).
 
I would definitely cycle the rock previous to putting it in the dt, just to prevent any possible headache and remove any possible leftover dead material inside of the rocks due to previous use that might leach into the established aquarium.

From previous reading I done, even after drying the rock out there is still dead material left inside of the rock from the Organisms that’s where once there.

Obviously I don’t know it all and just take what I say with a grain of salt, maybe some more expierenced could chime in and either verify or deny what I say.
 
You can add as much clean dry rock as you want to an established tank - there is nothing on it to decompose or pollute the water.

If it is just dried but never really cleaned, you'd either want to add it slowly, soak it for a while first (cure it), or soak it in something like muriatic acid to remove any residuals. Muriatic acid is cheap and available at Loews, Home Depot, etc. It disolves organic material, cleaning out all the crevices in the rocks. After muriatic acid (and maybe a scrub if it had a lot of material on it), it is fully clean and can be added to the display in any quantity.
 
You can add as much clean dry rock as you want to an established tank - there is nothing on it to decompose or pollute the water.

If it is just dried but never really cleaned, you'd either want to add it slowly, soak it for a while first (cure it), or soak it in something like muriatic acid to remove any residuals. Muriatic acid is cheap and available at Loews, Home Depot, etc. It disolves organic material, cleaning out all the crevices in the rocks. After muriatic acid (and maybe a scrub if it had a lot of material on it), it is fully clean and can be added to the display in any quantity.

Ditto!
 
You can add as much clean dry rock as you want to an established tank - there is nothing on it to decompose or pollute the water.

If it is just dried but never really cleaned, you'd either want to add it slowly, soak it for a while first (cure it), or soak it in something like muriatic acid to remove any residuals. Muriatic acid is cheap and available at Loews, Home Depot, etc. It disolves organic material, cleaning out all the crevices in the rocks. After muriatic acid (and maybe a scrub if it had a lot of material on it), it is fully clean and can be added to the display in any quantity.
I actually have some muriatic acid so I might as well soak it. How long and do you use straight muriatic or do you cut it with water? It’s nasty stuff, I’m a mason and we use it quite a bit to clean mortar off of brick/stone and we always cut it. Also do you just rinse it thoroughly after cleaning? A good soak I imagine, correct?
 
I cut it. The jug I got from HD started out diluted, and I cut it further into the 5g buckets of dry rock I was cleaning. Think I used about 1/4 gallon diluted acid to 2-3 gallons water. It'll start to bubble. I left it overnight (and some much longer...) and just rinsed the unholy bejesus out of it after.
 
If you are trying to clean rock I would suggest diluted bleach instead of acid. Muriatic acid is just hydrochloric acid and while it's useful for plenty of reef-related projects, I would not use it for this purpose. Acid will dissolve the rock which is not really what you are trying to do.

You really want to remove the organic material from the rock so that it does not later break down and add nutrients to your water. 1 cup of bleach in a few gallons of tap water works well, soak the rock for a week or two. Depending upon the amount of organic material on/in the rock you might need to rinse it after the first bleach treatment and perform the bleach treatment again. Finally rinse the rock well (tap water is fine) then set it out somewhere warm where it can fully dry (nice to do it outside in the sun if it's warm). It might take a few weeks, but when you can no longer smell any trace of the bleach you can add it to your tank. I've recycled many hundreds of pounds of rock this way over the years.
 
Upcoming Events

April 21, 2024
Paul B
Club Meeting

Back
Top