LOWEST Salinity for Cooking dead live rock

[Empress]

I have a bunch of old rock that was stored away for years and now I want to re-use it. I was told it’s ok to use lower salinity and a cheaper salt mix just for cooking it. I’ll be using my Brute can, pump and RODI water on the back porch (to keep the stink out of the house). I expect it to take 3 months or so to get the NO3 and PO4 down to safe levels. What’s the LOWEST salinity I can get away with? All other parameters aren’t important right now. Just want to clean the rock (without acid, bleach or other chemicals). Looking for Lowest Salinity. Thanks. P.S. I’m not in Idaho anymore. I’m in The Sunshine State.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have a bunch of old rock that was stored away for years and now I want to re-use it. I was told it’s ok to use lower salinity and a cheaper salt mix just for cooking it. I’ll be using my Brute can, pump and RODI water on the back porch (to keep the stink out of the house). I expect it to take 3 months or so to get the NO3 and PO4 down to safe levels. What’s the LOWEST salinity I can get away with? All other parameters aren’t important right now. Just want to clean the rock (without acid, bleach or other chemicals). Looking for Lowest Salinity. Thanks. P.S. I’m not in Idaho anymore. I’m in The Sunshine State.

Cooking live rock May offer atmospheric toxins
Best is. Bleach or sulfuric acid followed by good rinse and sun dry

 

[Jedi1199]

I have a bunch of old rock that was stored away for years and now I want to re-use it. I was told it’s ok to use lower salinity and a cheaper salt mix just for cooking it. I’ll be using my Brute can, pump and RODI water on the back porch (to keep the stink out of the house). I expect it to take 3 months or so to get the NO3 and PO4 down to safe levels. What’s the LOWEST salinity I can get away with? All other parameters aren’t important right now. Just want to clean the rock (without acid, bleach or other chemicals). Looking for Lowest Salinity. Thanks. P.S. I’m not in Idaho anymore. I’m in The Sunshine State.

I have a batch of 50 pounds of new dry rock I have been "cooking" for about 6 weeks now. I simply used the waste water from my DT on water change day. And ghost feed every few days. A good strong pump and top off with more waste water as needed. No stink, no extra mixing of water, and no worries of salinity.

 

[Empress]

I don’t have a tank set up yet so I don’t have any water to transfer from a DT to holding tank. Can I cook the rock in 1.009 salinity? I’m not in any hurry. I want to do this without bleach or sulphuric acid. Thanks.

 

[Cell]

For those confused, cooking as in curing, not actually boiling the rock.

 

[Jedi1199]

For those confused, cooking as in curing, not actually boiling the rock.

This was my assumption. Do NOT boil or actually "Cook" rock ever!!

I agree with Ryan from BRS that I dislike this term as it can be misleading. We should change the term from "cooking" to "curing".

 

[Empress]

How about I change the word from cook to ’re-cure’. It was in my 240 for many years. I tore the tank down because i moved across country. Now that I’ve settled in, i want to ‘clean, cure, bring back to life, seed, make brand-new again my old used to be dead rock, dry rock, ugly rock into pretty usable, safe rock that I can put back into my tank. I want to use hypo-salinity and cheap salt to do that. There’s a lot of dead mushrooms and hitchhikers that need to disappear, dissolve, disintegrate, be gone from the rock. For you newbies out there, please don’t actually put any rock in a pot and boil it on the stove. That’s very dangerous. Muriatic acid is even more dangerous. Thanks again.