To cure or not to cure

JaimeAdams · Sep 23, 2016

I am going to add a few tanks in-line with my already running system. I have about 200 pounds of rock cooking in muriatic acid at the moment and was going to add them mostly to an unlight satelite tank to add biological filtration to my system. Do you guys think that I need to do any type of curing after the fresh RO water soak or can I just add them into my system?

Reeferdood · Sep 23, 2016

I'd scrap the live rock idea and get some bio blocks from BRS... I swear by the stuff and use it in my sump now... something about acid just does not sit well with me when it comes to reefing.. live rock really is not the best place to grow bacteria anyhow...
My .02

JaimeAdams · Sep 23, 2016

Acid washing rock is perfectly acceptable. There are a number of posts on R2R that describe the details of the process.

I am what you call financially challenged. It's kind of hard to tell the wife that we need to drop a few hundred on some bio blocks when I have a few hundred pounds of rock laying around.

I just hosed down the rock after the acid wash and saw all the gunk that I was spraying off and determined that the best coarse of action is probably to just cure them with old tank water in a rubber maid before adding them to the system. It was actually quite interesting to see the variouse type of rock that I had after washing off the coraline and algae and top layer. It seems the my "Real Reef" rock is garbage, just looks like a porcelain with a purple coating that the acid took off, not porous at all.

I am currently sun drying the rock after heavy rinsing and will then do a fresh water soak for a few days before an external curing process.