Disinfecting Live Rock

[Piker]

Hey all,

I've recently been given a used aquarium I'm going to use as a quarantine for a larger tank that I have in the works. The tank has bristle worms and aptasia, I'm new to the hobby and looking for advice on how to handle this, I would like this tank to be ultra cleen as it's going to be my barrier to pests when I buy livestock.

My current plan is to let the rock dry out for a few days, then soak it for 3 days in a half water/half vinegar solution. Then rinse/scrub again and soak 3 more days in a new vinegar/water solution. Finally soaking in fresh water for 3 days and then curing the rock for about a month in saltwater and adding benifical bacteria supplement... then dumping that water adding the rock to my tank and cycling the tank.

This is my absolute first set up, so any advice from someone will help. If you feel I'm putting in too much or too little effort please let me know! I guess I just want to know what an experienced reefer would do in my position. Thanks!

 

[GoVols]

Sounds good here.

@NY_Caveman
Any thoughts?

Thanks, Freddie

 

[mcarroll]

Hm....no....sell the live rock before you kill it.

Step 1: Quarantine a butterflyfish. Klein's is my preference, Copperbands are cool, pick one. No more anemone problem.
Step 2: you pick, but don't kill the live rock

 

[ZoWhat]

 

[NY_Caveman]

Is the live rock still wet? If so I would just remove the Aiptasia and preserve the bacteria and other life. Personally, I would keep the bristle worms as I feel they are quite beneficial. I even added some to my rock.

If you do want to start fresh and remove the life, I would suggest bleach instead of vinegar. Only because I have never used vinegar for this myself. Soak a week in 10:1 RO/DI to bleach and then a week in RO/DI with dechlorinator. I would not use tap water as it often has very high Phosphate levels.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Since you have only rock, I would take them one at a time and use boiling water and a turkey baster and hit each Aiptasia. The boiling water will kill all tissue that might start new specimens.

EDIT: if I wanted to keep the rock live that is.

EDIT 2: to be absolutely clear, I am saying take the rocks out one at a time. Hold them in a bucket. Use a turkey baster to spirit boiling water a few times at each Aiptasia. Do not boil live or dry rocks themselves ever.

 

[GoVols]

....
..............;Hilarious

 

[ZoWhat]

 

[Piker]

I want to start over, the sheer amount of detritus worms and bristle worms infesting the tank is crazy. The live sand was probably 50% detritus and was tossed. I know it will take time to get the rock in good shape again.

I did consider bleach, and may go that route instead... but thought a half vinegar solution would be slightly more gentle on the rock.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I want to start over, the sheer amount of detritus worms and bristle worms infesting the tank is crazy. The live sand was probably 50% detritus and was tossed. I know it will take time to get the rock in good shape again.

I did consider bleach, and may go that route instead... but thought a half vinegar solution would be slightly more gentle on the rock.

I will note that vinegar is an acid and may dissolve some of the rock. Again though, I have not used it like this and it is not as strong as say muriatic acid (which is a form of hydrochloric acid). Perhaps that is what you want though. “Burn” the outer layer. Bleach would not do this, of course.

 

[scuzy]

I've bleached my rocks in three tanks and it's been perfect. Gets all the unwanted out.

 

[mcarroll]

I want to start over, the sheer amount of detritus worms and bristle worms infesting the tank is crazy. The live sand was probably 50% detritus and was tossed. I know it will take time to get the rock in good shape again.

I did consider bleach, and may go that route instead... but thought a half vinegar solution would be slightly more gentle on the rock.

Starting with live rock in any shape and then killing it doesn't make much sense.

If it's just dirty then swish it off in a bucket of salt water and you're done.

If that's not sufficient for your needs then I would definitely sell the rock rather than killing it. It's got to be worth almost 5 times as much if it's still alive — don't waste that.

If that is still your goal — to kill the rock — then you really should consider making your own rock.

You can get much cooler shapes and you are no worse off than starting with bleached rock.

Like @Paul B recently did and many before.

 

[mcarroll]

A bonus I forgot to mention is that you can make your own rock without messing with any dangerous chemicals.

 

[CC13]

I've bleached my rocks in three tanks and it's been perfect. Gets all the unwanted out.

This.

I use muriatic acid and bleach to kill all organics and then run some sort of phosphate remover (Prime) before each new tank. Yes you start completely new, and yes the tank looks horrible when the rock is bleached white for the first 6-months but it really is the only way to know exactly whats introduced into the tank. Any pest (bubble algae, airptasia, ect) that gets in the tank after that if 100% your fault for introducing it.

DO NOT USE MURIATIC ACID, BLEACH AND WATER UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN ON WHICH TO ADD FIRST. There are many threads on how to do this properly, and not doing it properly can result in very dangerous vapors being formed. Do it right, its absolutely as safe as can be.

 

[Bpb]

I want to start over, the sheer amount of detritus worms and bristle worms infesting the tank is crazy. The live sand was probably 50% detritus and was tossed. I know it will take time to get the rock in good shape again.

I did consider bleach, and may go that route instead... but thought a half vinegar solution would be slightly more gentle on the rock.

I guess I’m in the camp that finds worms to be beneficial. But I’ll not go off on a tangent.

I agree with the others. There are a million solutions better than nuking mature live rock. But if you’re still insistent on it, realize bleach and vinegar do different things. It’s not a “one is more gentle than the other” situation

Bleach is a strong oxidizer. It will break apart organic matter. Bacterial colonies, sponges, algae, worms, ect will all basically disintegrate if the mix is strong enough and you soak long enough. It will however leave any PO4 that blinded to the calcium carbonate surface completely intact.

Vinegar on the other hand is not going to get rid of most the organic matter in the rock. It’ll kill it. Yes. And it will dissolve away the outer small fraction of the rock surface that the PO4 has bound to. But, you will be left with dead biomass of worms and bacteria inside the rock. That won’t go anywhere with a vinegar bath.

Bleach gets out organic life, vinegar chemically reacts with the rock to reduce PO4.

 

[WVNed]

The magical art of turning gold into lead.

 

[CC13]

The magical art of turning gold into lead.

$15/lbs to $1/lbs in the matter of minutes.

But at least you have no pests right? lol

 

[Dburr1014]

Hey all,

I've recently been given a used aquarium I'm going to use as a quarantine for a larger tank that I have in the works. The tank has bristle worms and aptasia, I'm new to the hobby and looking for advice on how to handle this, I would like this tank to be ultra cleen as it's going to be my barrier to pests when I buy livestock.

My current plan is to let the rock dry out for a few days, then soak it for 3 days in a half water/half vinegar solution. Then rinse/scrub again and soak 3 more days in a new vinegar/water solution. Finally soaking in fresh water for 3 days and then curing the rock for about a month in saltwater and adding benifical bacteria supplement... then dumping that water adding the rock to my tank and cycling the tank.

This is my absolute first set up, so any advice from someone will help. If you feel I'm putting in too much or too little effort please let me know! I guess I just want to know what an experienced reefer would do in my position. Thanks!

I've had luce rock soaking in vinegar for a week and didn't kill aptasia. You'd be better off with bleach.

 

[Dburr1014]

Since you have only rock, I would take them one at a time and use boiling water and a turkey baster and hit each Aiptasia. The boiling water will kill all tissue that might start new specimens.

EDIT: if I wanted to keep the rock live that is.

DO NOT BOIL LIVE ROCK.

This will be very dangerous to do. Do not follow this advise.

Edit, unless you mean to squirt the Apts with billing water. Still doesn't work great.

 

[NY_Caveman]

DO NOT BOIL LIVE ROCK.

This will be very dangerous to do. Do not follow this advise.

Edit, unless you mean to squirt the Apts with billing water. Still doesn't work great.

Yes, never boil live or dry rock. Very dangerous. I meant use the turkey baster to squirt boiling water on the specimens. Thought that was pretty clear. Worked great for me several times. I have not seen one in my tank for a month since.