BRS fiji dry rock problem

[Toolmandan]

Did you get the rock @Bulk Reef Supply? cause I'm about to put my order in for 60 lbs.

Yea man I just got it in last week. I am going to be calling them first thing Monday morning and try to figure this thing out

 

[cginter]

This happened to me once. I found it to be all die off from all the rock. (I bought figi live rock from petco online). I changed out the water, scrubbed the rocks with a wire brush, and restarted the cycling process. It smelled for about two weeks. I think it just going through the stages of cycling, you jus had some dirty rock I'm assuming

 

[rlman41299]

I am sure BRS will make it right for you. Lately all of our orders coming from BRS have been incomplete. Don't know what has been going on with them. Lack of staff maybe? My last order was so incomplete that it was missing items but also including items that we did not order. This time they are sending a replacement chamber for a calRx for it is missing all the o-rings.
I am sure the will make it right tho as they did ours.

 

[twilliard]

Anaerobic rock.
Lack of o2
Keep changing the water and if you are able to add air

 

[Cment]

looks like a lot of decomposing stuff as others have mentioned. you can always use muriatic acid if you have the space, this will get rid of it real quick. Its extremely dangerous if done improperly so use caution if attempting this method.

 

[saltyphish]

Since it smells awful, I bet that it has some organic material on it that was dried. Now that it is in water, it is being decomposed and is releasing its wonderful bouquet. You could take the Rock and scrub it off to try to remove some of the gunk. Some people throw dry rock into a bleach solution to remove the residue. Then they rinse and cycle it. I would think that if you just let the decomposition run its course, it will be fine. However, you might not like the olfactory assault.

I agree it is die off. Bleach is used to kill anything living on the rock. Muratic acid is used to remove organics. If you use that stuff make sure you do it outside well ventilated with gloves and eye protection.

 

[MadCityReefer]

Throw in a air stone give it a few weeks to cure you will be good to go

 

[CuzzA]

Pukani/Fijian rock is harvested directly from the ocean. They let it dry on a beach and then give it a quick pressure wash before shipping it. There is no way to determine how much and what type of organics were growing/trapped inside the rock. Coral, sponges, bivalves, even fish can be stuck inside the rock. This is just the nature of using rock that was removed from a reef. It has nothing to do with BRS, TBS or anyone else for that matter. The bottom line is you're going to have to do a lot of water changes. If you want to speed up the process I would give the rocks an acid wash followed by a bleach wash and then restart the soak with new clean seawater.

As far as what the black stuff is, who knows. My guess is simply a mix of bacteria and fungus and a load of other nasty funk due to an extremely high organic load.