Curing pukani hitchhiker or not?

[Michael Stetz]

I have been curing 15lbs of pukani for about 2 months. It has been in a storage bin in about 10 gallons of heated RO water from my LFS or local grocery store (maxi jet 600 for circulation). There has been little to zero light because it is in a closet.

After rewatching some BRS Investigates videos and doing some homework I decided to add bleach for 72 hours. I removed the bleach today with a 100% water change and a rinse of the rock and container. I placed the rock back in and refilled the container with dechlorinated tap water.

Anyway on to the potential hitchhiker ID.

As you can see there are some pink spots with small branches some red algae spots flat to the rock some clam shells and some drastic changes in color from white to brown.

This has been curing for quite a while and has even had a recent bleach soak yet there is still quite a bit of suspect areas in the rock.

Is this normal or should I be concerned. If normal my plan is to do another 100% water change with RO and at that point I was going to add salt and a piece of live rock from my existing system. If not I might buy some Reef Saver and start over ;-)

 

[FMF0331]

You'll be fine. No need to be worried, i bleached mine rocks for 3 days and kept them in fresh ro/di water for 2 weeks - changing out ro/di every 3 days
i'll post picture when i get home

 

[Gareth elliott]

Mines not pukani but tonga, but this is 2 days in bleach and still have spot of color.

Any hitchhiker you get off rock that sits in freshwater will die. What you want to make sure of is any decaying matter has decayed enough to not add phosphate and ammonia in amounts that your system cant use and in turn feeds algae. Bleaching speeds up that decaying process.

 

[Michael Stetz]

Cool thank you both. I am probably just trying to talk myself out of the Pukani because I really like the look and stackability of the Reef Saver in my other tank. I plan on combining both types of rock in my new tank and I'm not real sure if I will like that look.

I heard so many good things about Pukani that I figured I had to try it but for me I think I am partial to the look of Reef Saver.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

It’s a dead foraminifera.

With bleach , the rock is now dead.
You’ll want to cycle it.