Dry Rock Knowledge Needed!! Pukani I guess.

[reefhacks]

Hi everyone,
I don't know what to do next. I have a Biocube 29 fully cycled with 11.5 lbs of Jakarta LR (3 weeks and 2 days old). I got 6.5 lbs of Pukani Dry Rock from a friend, or at least I think it's Pukani. He said the rock was in a box in storage for about for about 10 years. Before it was boxed it he soaked it in bleach water for 2 days, then let it air dry.

I took the time rock out of the box drove home and immediately mixed a bucket of saltwater (1.025). I used Tap water and added PRIME. I then seeded the bucket with a cycling piece of LR and a cup of water out of my cycling DT.

The dry rock has been cycling for 2 weeks exactly. It is almost done cycling with no Ammonia, high Nitrite, no Nitrate. I have not done any water changes in either system (bucket or DT).

********* PROBLEM ***********
I still have about 2.0 phosphate in the bucket. What do I do next????????

Thanks sorry it was long.

 

[reefhacks]

I forgot to mention, I have the stock pump out of the biocube in the bucket circulating the water with a heater.

 

[Jnickles85]

I had old rock that I had in storage for around 4 years that I reused in my 24 gallon reef. What I did to try and get the phosphate out was I put the rock in a 5 gallon bucket with RO water and some vinegar. I let it soak with a pump running for a day. Then I emptied the bucket filled it with just RO and soaked it for another day. I repeated that process with regular ROB for about a week before I let my Rock air dry for a few more days just to be sure.

From what I've read from a couple different threads is that ROB water acts like a sponge and pulls the phosphate out of the rock. That is until there's equal amounts of phosphate in the rock and water. That's why it takes a few times before you will get it low enough.

You could also run a GFO reactor on your bucket if you wanted. But I think that way is a little more expensive in the long run.

 

[Volcmreefer]

Lanthanum Chloride dose if still in bucket. Doing mine now and it has reduced po4 from 0.42 ppm to 0.06 ppm in a little over a week. The stuff works great. Using ATM Agent Green lanthanum.