Ideas for renewing infested rock...

Degener8 · Apr 3, 2012

My 75gallon semi hex tank has about 80# of LR in it..

This rock is infested with Aiptasia and red bubble algae. Its my own fault. I did not QT a coral long ago and got both .. my bad..

the question now is.. How do I tear it all down.. and get rid of the Pest rock while not just wasting the rock.. I really cant afford to do that.

There is some coral in the tank.. not alot.. and I can move what i want to save to a different tank until the process is done.. The problem is the sand.. which I will have to kill off since it has nasties in it as well (no biggie I can rinse it w FW real good and reuse it.. )

BUT.. I have a 2 FT snowflake moray Eel in it.. Hoping he will be ok with VERY frequent water changes in a small 30 gal bow front I have.. will leave a little LR in there for him til 90% of the rock is cleaned..

So whats the Best way to KILL my rock and revitalize it...

I am thinking of bleaching the crap outa it.. then rinsing it and using dechlortinator.. then pressure washing it on the sidewalk to get the gunk out of it.. then recycling it in the aquarium..

interested in other ideas ... please post your thoughts.

revhtree · Apr 3, 2012

Just leave the tank up and running with a little of the rock so you can keep your sand and critters alive. After you cycle the old rock again you can add it back to the tank and then remove the remaining algae infested rock.

As far as what I would do to clean the rock is this. I would take it out and scrape off everything I could. Then I would spray it all down with some high pressure and then let it sit outside for a couple weeks. After that i would scrub it real good, rinse it, and then start cycling it to go back into the tank.

That's just me though.

BTW you need to find out why you are having such algae issues. You may actually be able to get rid of the algae without removing the rocks.

How much do you feed?
What is your fish load?
Do you use RO/DI?
What are your phosphate levels?

Degener8 · Apr 4, 2012

Tank inhabitants are as follows
1 Snowflake moray eeel..
2 Peppermint shrimp to eat aiptasia
various snails and hermits to eat algae

I have an RO unit.. 4 TDS currently.. going to backflush it tomorrow to see if i can hit zero again..If not I'llorder new membrane and filters.

I feed every other day 2 silversides directly to the moray and 1 silverside to my plate on one to my welso brain frag.

Phosphate level Unknown..
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20 (likely more in reality with them amount of algae I have)

Not traching calcium or magnesium.
20gallon water change weekly.
Purchasing NAC5A skimmer next week sometime
System has sump with small amount of macro growing but only recently added. Going to totally redo sump and put in a Bean animal overflow setup once I order the skimmer. I will need to atleast drain the tank temporarily to drill the tank for the overflow.

I think that answered all questions and then some.

Degener8 · Apr 4, 2012

after i get the skimmer broke in and nitrates in control I am going to move my 6ish inch Florida keys Scorpion fish into the tank also .. Those should be the only inhabitants other than possibly a nice tang of sorts.. one big enough not to get eaten...