Ensuring rock is bleach free

[tdileo]

I had some used rock from my old tank and recently bleach cured it over a couple weeks. For the past week, I’ve soaked in freshwater with tons of Prime and still smelled bleach up until yesterday. I poured about 1/3 of a big bottle of Prime into a new 5g of freshwater again last night and let it soak. Last night I didn’t smell and bleach and still don’t. Chlorine test strip comes up at 0 (I’m not to keen on strips but I had one for the pool and expect it to be decently accurate). Is there any other way to ensure it’s safe to go into my tank so I don’t accidentally kill everything?

 

[marinesnow]

When I bleached my rock, I soaked it in fresh water and prime just like you did. Then let it sit in the sun to gas off—this got rid of the smell. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t worry so much since your test strips are returning 0(assuming the lower limit of detection is below toxic levels). Not to mention, prime neutralizes chlorine pretty efficiently in my experience. But just to be safe, I’d run carbon on your tank for a week—it removes chlorine—and even that may be overkill. Good luck!!

 

[Reeferdood]

I use prime to dechlorinate my filter socks every time I wash them. When they are rinsed out and still wet they have a slight bleach smell. Air dry them and it goes away & I have never had a problem.
It seems you have done everything you can but if you are still in doubt, try another method to test for chlorine and go from there...

 

[glb]

Lamotte makes these strips for free and total chlorine. Lots of reefers use them and they measure low levels. I use them for my RODI water. Here’s the link from BRS: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/insta-test-free-total-chlorine-strips-lamotte.html

Good luck!

 

[tdileo]

Thanks for the advice. I did let it sun dry for a full two days because it’s been nearly 100° here the past couple days but I had placed it back in water. I decided to dump the water again, refill and add a little prime as well as a couple pond snails I had from outside. My assumption is if they live for an hour or two it’ll be safe to use and I can just throw them back in the pond and put the rock in my tank. Hopefully all goes well.

 

[cracker]

Put them out in the sun. I'm pretty dure the rays quickly breakdown the chlorine molecules . Never had any probs this way .

 

[tdileo]

Update. Put the rock in my tank before I left for work yesterday. Before leaving work, picked up a couple new frags and came home and everything looked good, everything had normal PE and fish were fine. Glued down the new frags on the new rock to start filling in and today most of the new SPS are completely extended already so I’d say it’s safe to say there was no bleach left behind.

 

[Reeferdood]

Your system will go through a cycle so I would not buy any more corals before the cycle is complete..
My.02

 

[tdileo]

Your system will go through a cycle so I would not buy any more corals before the cycle is complete..
My.02

This isn’t a new tank. I just added in a couple extra pounds of rock.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The pores in the rock are hard to penetrate by Prime (or bleach), and so may still harbor some bleach.

 

[mfinn]

The pores in the rock are hard to penetrate by Prime (or bleach), and so may still harbor some bleach.

If the bleach can get in, why can't the Prime go in just as far and neutralize the bleach ?


Also I was under the impression that the bleach will dissipate on it's own with exposure to air.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If the bleach can get in, why can't the Prime go in just as far and neutralize the bleach ?


Also I was under the impression that the bleach will dissipate on it's own with exposure to air.

Prime can penetrate, certainly. It's just a matter of time to allow it to do so.

Bleach down deep in a pore isn't necessarily exposed to air.