Live rock restart?

[booth2010]

So I have had a 10 gal aquarium (some reef but will be a lot more in a few months) for about 4 months now. I am upgrading the tank to a 30 and am wanting to use the live rock and sand from the 10. My only problem is that I have had a real bad red slime problem for over a month now. I read that someone "restarted" their live rock by keeping it in a tub with complete darkness, a powerhead, an airstone, and changed out 50% of his RODI water every couple weeks. He said after this his rock looked amazing. I was wondering if yall think this would work to kill any unwanted photosynthetic nuisances and make the rock, and possibly sand, good as new to add to the larger tank? The torch and few shrooms I have along with the fish and cleaners would just stay in the 10 for the month or 2 it takes to restart it all.

 

[booth2010]

The guy said he took 4 months to restart his rock but I would probably do 1-2 months unless yall think longer would be better. I hate being new at things and not knowing much... :squigglemouth:

 

[general0]

I "restarted" my rocks when I switched to a different tank and I used muractic acid to completely clean them, then a diluted bleach and rodi soak, rinsed twice and let soak in rodi for a day or two. After this I put the rocks in the new tank with new sand and used Microbe-Lift Special Blend and Dr. Tim's One and Only to cycle the tank.

It took about 4 weeks before I saw all my levels stabilize and then I added some live rock I had in my old sump to seed the tank with all the critters. I waited another month before adding my corals and fish and fed the tank pellets and a few mysis during this time to keep the bacteria alive and to propagate further before adding everything back in.

I still had diatoms and a algae bloom due to I had to move over all my corals and fish in two days but it was very minor and I put in a small cleanup crew that's been helping to clean it up.

 

[benny z]

if your tank/liverock is only 4 months old, definitely no...don't "restart" it via cooking/bleaching/acid bathing.

the additional water volume of the new tank will help you out tremendously with nutrient problems.

maybe consider exponentially more water flow for the new tank to help keep detritus suspended in the water column so it doesn't settle and cause nussaince algae like you're experiencing now. and possibly re-evaluate your feeding habits/quantities.

 

[booth2010]

Yea I wasnt going to bleach or use acid. But okay, I am going to get a small powerhead to put in it for more flow, also right now im using a HOB rated up to 20 gal and when I go to the 30 im drilling the tank and using a 10gal sump so overall water will be around 35-37 gal. I only feed once every 3 days and a small amount to help with phosphates. I was using a flake that was said to not increase phosphates but it would kill my fish (sounds weird but that has to be the reason after I did a small experiment).