Cleaning live rock help!

[Klinson8]

I want to take pieces of live rock out in shifts and clean it. Do I use muriatic acid, vinegar, or bleach? The rock will be taken out of the tank but put back in after cleaned. I’ve read about phosphates leaching and I’m just trying to figure out the best way to do this. This is a long-term thing and don’t plan on removing all the rock in the next week or two. Although the tank is a few years old and have a lot of sand don’t want to kill all the rock off at once.Thank you for any and all responses and opinions.

 

[Blumy]

Why clean it in the first place?

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I would rather you took the rock out and swisher it around and swashed it in fresh heated sw and scrub it with a toothbrush or similar but bigger if need be and swish some more and let the detritus fall. Than replace.
D

 

[ApoIsland]

I want to take pieces of live rock out in shifts and clean it. Do I use muriatic acid, vinegar, or bleach? The rock will be taken out of the tank but put back in after cleaned. I’ve read about phosphates leaching and I’m just trying to figure out the best way to do this. This is a long-term thing and don’t plan on removing all the rock in the next week or two. Although the tank is a few years old and have a lot of sand don’t want to kill all the rock off at once.Thank you for any and all responses and opinions.

If you are cleaning it because there is algae on it then bleaching / acid bath will just make it more susceptible to algae regrowth because you are killing the organisms already on the rock that are already fighting the algae. The best way to handle that is to remove the rock and brush it very good with a hard bristled brush then rinse and put back in the tank. Keep as many good things alive as possible.

If you are bleaching/acid bath because you are worried about phosphate leaching then I would setup a separate bucket/tub with saltwater where you can treat the rock with seaklear and hopefully not kill the beneficial bacterial populations.

 

[Klinson8]

Why clean it in the first place?

Vermetid snails and asterina have overrun certain rocks. It’s weird but only certain rocks have become covered. Bumble bees, manual remove and glue can’t keep up.

 

[Klinson8]

If you are cleaning it because there is algae on it then bleaching / acid bath will just make it more susceptible to algae regrowth because you are killing the organisms already on the rock that are already fighting the algae. The best way to handle that is to remove the rock and brush it very good with a hard bristled brush then rinse and put back in the tank. Keep as many good things alive as possible.

If you are bleaching/acid bath because you are worried about phosphate leaching then I would setup a separate bucket/tub with saltwater where you can treat the rock with seaklear and hopefully not kill the beneficial bacterial populations.

This is similar to other responses I’ve read. Killing both good and bad but if bad outweigh good then not as much of a risk wiping out good.

 

[Tamberav]

Vermetid snails and asterina have overrun certain rocks. It’s weird but only certain rocks have become covered. Bumble bees, manual remove and glue can’t keep up.

they will just come back since you are not resetting the whole tank at once

 

[Klinson8]

they will just come back since you are not resetting the whole tank at once

I know but I’m talking hundreds on some rocks and a handful on others. Picking and choosing my battles to get it manageable. I realize basically never going away unless I restart

 

[ApoIsland]

I know but I’m talking hundreds on some rocks and a handful on others. Picking and choosing my battles to get it manageable. I realize basically never going away unless I restart

In that case might as well. The bacteria will repopulate fairly quickly.

i recently switched tanks and changed up the scape which ended up in me removing 20-30% of the live rock on day 1 with no I’ll effects. Repeated that again 6 weeks later and still no issues. Basically got rid of 50% of my old live rock in the last couple months and replaced with a new dead custom rock scape.

 

[Cell]

I would use bleach.