How to: LIVE ROCK ACID BATH

[joelpeavy]

You guys doing this to remove slime and hair algae are killing me! I don't care how horrific you think the algae problem is or how uncontrollable you think it is...there's a very simple method to rid yourself of the problem. Kalkwasser. Make a batch and drip it in the water and over the course of about a week you will see it all disappear. Had a customer with a 180G that let his tank get into a horrible mess once. The water was green and there was a thick sludge of red slime over the reef, walls, filter and skimmer even. We dripped about 2 gallons of kalk in over the course of a week, did a 25% water change and voila! Amazing what happens when you start getting after the phosphates and nitrates.

I'm with the other old timers here. Killing a live rock is a severe waste of resource, money, bacteria and more money. There's many a LFS or neighbor that would take that off your hands and "recycle" it for you so we don't have to go back to the reef and break another piece of nature off. Amazing thing is, for every single problem you run into in your aquarium believe it or not Mother Nature has already developed the solution for it. Aiptasia are easily cared for by a Copperband, hair algae are an excellent food source for Lawnmower Blennies, slime algae can be ridded with a decent CUC of crabs and snails in most cases or a good dose of Kalk in extreme cases. Problem child in your rock? Take care of that hitchhiker by pulling the rock out, drain it a bit then wrap it in newspaper and stick it in an ice chest closed and warm for a few days. Most things will leave the rock in search of water or die off from the lack of water. The things that remain are built to be hardy for when there are tidal changes and can take a few days in a moist environment.

If you are worried about dead things in your old rock when you go to establish your new reef...DON'T! Throw that old dry rock in there, let the rotted matter be the food source for your new bacteria that will cycle your reef.

 

[Dog Boy Dave]

You guys doing this to remove slime and hair algae are killing me! I don't care how horrific you think the algae problem is or how uncontrollable you think it is...there's a very simple method to rid yourself of the problem. Kalkwasser. Make a batch and drip it in the water and over the course of about a week you will see it all disappear. Had a customer with a 180G that let his tank get into a horrible mess once. The water was green and there was a thick sludge of red slime over the reef, walls, filter and skimmer even. We dripped about 2 gallons of kalk in over the course of a week, did a 25% water change and voila! Amazing what happens when you start getting after the phosphates and nitrates.

I'm with the other old timers here. Killing a live rock is a severe waste of resource, money, bacteria and more money. There's many a LFS or neighbor that would take that off your hands and "recycle" it for you so we don't have to go back to the reef and break another piece of nature off. Amazing thing is, for every single problem you run into in your aquarium believe it or not Mother Nature has already developed the solution for it. Aiptasia are easily cared for by a Copperband, hair algae are an excellent food source for Lawnmower Blennies, slime algae can be ridded with a decent CUC of crabs and snails in most cases or a good dose of Kalk in extreme cases. Problem child in your rock? Take care of that hitchhiker by pulling the rock out, drain it a bit then wrap it in newspaper and stick it in an ice chest closed and warm for a few days. Most things will leave the rock in search of water or die off from the lack of water. The things that remain are built to be hardy for when there are tidal changes and can take a few days in a moist environment.

If you are worried about dead things in your old rock when you go to establish your new reef...DON'T! Throw that old dry rock in there, let the rotted matter be the food source for your new bacteria that will cycle your reef.

Another old timer here that agrees with this poster. A healthy well designed system will clean the rock as it gets older. Purging your rock and starting over and doing the same thing that got it so overwhelmingly dirty to begin with will lead you back to the same place you were when you began to see problems to begin with. If your rock isn't getting cleaner as your tank ages then you need to change your system so that it will be stable.

 

[Djtonton]

You guys doing this to remove slime and hair algae are killing me! I don't care how horrific you think the algae problem is or how uncontrollable you think it is...there's a very simple method to rid yourself of the problem. Kalkwasser. Make a batch and drip it in the water and over the course of about a week you will see it all disappear. Had a customer with a 180G that let his tank get into a horrible mess once. The water was green and there was a thick sludge of red slime over the reef, walls, filter and skimmer even. We dripped about 2 gallons of kalk in over the course of a week, did a 25% water change and voila! Amazing what happens when you start getting after the phosphates and nitrates.

I'm with the other old timers here. Killing a live rock is a severe waste of resource, money, bacteria and more money. There's many a LFS or neighbor that would take that off your hands and "recycle" it for you so we don't have to go back to the reef and break another piece of nature off. Amazing thing is, for every single problem you run into in your aquarium believe it or not Mother Nature has already developed the solution for it. Aiptasia are easily cared for by a Copperband, hair algae are an excellent food source for Lawnmower Blennies, slime algae can be ridded with a decent CUC of crabs and snails in most cases or a good dose of Kalk in extreme cases. Problem child in your rock? Take care of that hitchhiker by pulling the rock out, drain it a bit then wrap it in newspaper and stick it in an ice chest closed and warm for a few days. Most things will leave the rock in search of water or die off from the lack of water. The things that remain are built to be hardy for when there are tidal changes and can take a few days in a moist environment.

If you are worried about dead things in your old rock when you go to establish your new reef...DON'T! Throw that old dry rock in there, let the rotted matter be the food source for your new bacteria that will cycle your reef.

GREAT post!!

 

[Windy]

Why buy rock and then dissolve it with acid? This makes no sense to me. Also, how do you know the "dead stuff" disintegrates into water?

If you really want to evaluate that idea, put an egg in either a light acid or vinegar over night. The next morning the shell is gone, but the egg still exists in what appears to be a rubber membrane. How do you de-capsulate brine shrimp eggs? Same system, acid removes the calcium bearing materials but not the organic ones. How do you explain that?

 

[jtroxel1]

What about just boiling the rock? I recently moved from one tank to another and wanted to deal with residual aiptasia that had been hiding in the rock and popping up everywhere. I decided to boil the every one of my rocks. I got a cauldron of boiling water (in the back yard, thank goodness - it really stank) and boiled each rock for about 5 minutes. That was 6 months ago. They seem to be gone.

I have a question here as well because I don't know the answer - but I have heard repeated often: If you've ever had Zoas in your tank don't boil your rock, as people have died from inhaling the vapors from boiling rock (no source to give you for this, and it may very well be an old wives tale, but why risk it?).

I was also curious why not just bleach the rock? Same thing as above, but instead of muratic acid, use household chlorine bleach. When you're in the rinse phase, use a standard water conditioner to remove any remaining chlorine. Easier to dispose of, easier to obtain, cheap as all get out, and I'm sure there are other reasons this is an easier choice than muriatic acid. Perhaps it's the shiny whiteness that you don't get with the bleach?

Of course, as others have said -- why go the nuclear route at all? Just fix the core issues.