Vinegar or Bleach to clean old Rock ?

[CamG]

Hi,
Getting back into the hobby and I have some old rock that has been sitting dry for about 10 years.
I want to start this new tank clean without live rock and seed it myself.
I really don't want to cook this rock with acid I just want to make sure it's clean.
So what do you suggest I go with ?
RODI water and vinegar ?
RODI water and some bleach ?
RODI water only ?
RODI and an acid bath ?

Also how long ? 2 -3 weeks with a couple of water changes ?

Thanks,
Cam

 

[CodyRVA]

You're going to get a plethora of answers as there are many different methods to this, but I personally do a mix of tap water and bleach, say 20% bleach. I let the rock sit in buckets, fully submerged, for a week. Then I rinse the rock, and let it sit for another week in fresh tap water. Then I let it sit out and dry for a few days. I've done this and added the "cleaned" rock to an established system with success.

 

[Transporter]

Tagging along in this thread...I have been out of saltwater for a couple years now (due to a divorce) and I am in the same boat as CamG. Only difference is, I have all of my old rock, about 80 #s, plus about 200# out of another system that was ran for the better part of 8 years and was out in the sun all last summer, fall and winter. I am in a very rural area with the closest hardware store and LFS over 30 minutes away. I already have the Brute trash cans, RO water (from super market), and a few gallons of vinegar...

 

[lambchops]

I tossed my rock into a Brute trashcan, filled it with ro water until the rocks were covered, about 15 gallons. Then I dumped a quart of bleach in. I let it sit overnight with a powerhead. I then dumped that and filled it up again with some chlorine remover to rinse. After the rinse, I let the rock dry and they were as clean as can be.

 

[Kawasaki213]

sun clean only ,vinegar lows PH pass no return, and bleach will kill your tank!!!!

 

[lambchops]

sun clean only ,vinegar lows PH pass no return, and bleach will kill your tank!!!!

He's cleaning old rock not an established tank. He should be fine using bleach.

 

[CamG]

Thanks everyone for the reply's
My only concern was not being able to rinse all the bleach off
Does the bleach evaporate when you leave the rock out in the sun ?

 

[Fishgeek88]

Use bleach all the time to clean decorative aquariums. Trick of the trade Weco Declor does an excellent job removing bleach.

 

[lambchops]

Thanks everyone for the reply's
My only concern was not being able to rinse all the bleach off
Does the bleach evaporate when you leave the rock out in the sun ?

If you rinse it with a declorinator and let it sit out in the sun until dry you should be good. Bleach will break down when exposed to light and air. You may still have a bleachy smell afterwards, or at least I did. I didn't encounter any problems though.

 

[CodyRVA]

+1, as long as its rinsed well and dried thoroughly you'll be fine.

 

[PatW]

It depends on what you think might be the problem with your rock.

Bleach is good for removing dead organic matter. You can put it into bleach and RODI for a day or so (it will not take much bleach). Afterwards, I would rinse the rock and soak in RODI to get any bleach out.

Acid plus RODI is good for removing phosphates from the rock. Just remember that HCl + CaCO3 = CaCl2 + CO2. I did not balance it out. You are adding hydrochloric acid to calcium carbonate. The acid consumes the rock. You end up with calcium chloride salt and carbon dioxide. Now adding a dilute HCl will remove a thin layer of rock and I guess the phosphates in that layer. But you are consuming some rock. I have not done this but I bet it removes the phosphates.

Vinegar is just a weak acid. I bet it will not etch the rock like hydrochloric acid will but it will make for an acidic environment that will accelerate the leaching of phosphates from the rock.

You could soak in dilute bleach (if you do not have significant organic matter, you can skip this step), followed by soaking in vinegar for maybe a week followed by soaking in saltwater for a week. If you have a phosphate tester, you could check the saltwater and if it has elevated phosphates, you are not done yet. You would need to repeat the vinegar, do acid, or use time and saltwater.

 

[ReeferGil]

I'm about to bleach a batch of live rock. Just curious, why are people using RO water with the bleach? Why not use hose (tapwater) with the bleach? The bleach will kill any harmful nutrients in the tapwater as well as kill the organisms on the live rock, yes? After the initial bleaching process, remove the rock, let it bake in the sun for a day or two (hot summer day), place rock back into Brute container, fill with RO water and add dechlorinator. I'd remove that water after a few days and do another RO soaking. Any thoughts?

 

[Snookin]

I never use tap water or hose water on anything in my tank especially porous rock. Never Ever..but I'm overly cautious and a control freak. I know bleach breaks down organics but does it also break down heavy metals and others potential contaminates in tap water? I don't know and honestly don't care. Tap water is huge no no for my reef tank. I would recommend soaking in bleach and RODI, then rinsing in RODI and drying it out. Better safe than sorry.

 

[ReeferGil]

Can't argue that. I'll stick with the RODI water, I have a 25 gallons of it waiting to be used. With my old system down, my RODI unit is probably getting confused anyhow. Rock rinse with it might wake it up. Good point about the metals. Thanks for the reply.

 

[CodyRVA]

I always use bleach and hot tap water to clean live rock. I do a follow up bath/soak in RODI and rinse in clean RODI prior to placing it back in my tank, but I've never had any issues using plain old tap water when bleaching rock.

 

[mfinn]

Bleach and tap water. But I'm spoiled. My tap water usually has a tds of 35. I've seen some people in other parts of the country post about tap water in 400-500 tds and higher. If my tap water was that high I would be tempted to use ro/di water for anything tank related.

 

[Will Perry]

It depends on what you think might be the problem with your rock.

Bleach is good for removing dead organic matter. You can put it into bleach and RODI for a day or so (it will not take much bleach). Afterwards, I would rinse the rock and soak in RODI to get any bleach out.

Acid plus RODI is good for removing phosphates from the rock. Just remember that HCl + CaCO3 = CaCl2 + CO2. I did not balance it out. You are adding hydrochloric Actacid to calcium carbonate. The acid consumes the rock. You end up with calcium chloride salt and carbon dioxide. Now adding a dilute HCl will remove a thin layer of rock and I guess the phosphates in that layer. But you are consuming some rock. I have not done this but I bet it removes the phosphates.

Vinegar is just a weak acid. I bet it will not etch the rock like hydrochloric acid will but it will make for an acidic environment that will accelerate the leaching of phosphates from the rock.

You could soak in dilute bleach (if you do not have significant organic matter, you can skip this step), followed by soaking in vinegar for maybe a week followed by soaking in saltwater for a week. If you have a phosphate tester, you could check the saltwater and if it has elevated phosphates, you are not done yet. You would need to repeat the vinegar, do acid, or use time and saltwater.

Actually, BRS tested this and bleach actually lowered phosphates more than an acid bath. They soaked in 10 gallons of water with 2 gallons of bleached added in for 5 days and the phosphates were noticably lower once they added them into a tank. Oh, they also did a clean water rinse and used dechlorinator afterwards.

 

[Joe Batt]

Do both acid bath and bleach. That's what I have done and also run ROWA to reduce any remaining PO4 whilst curing the rocks.

 

[Will Perry]

Do both acid bath and bleach. That's what I have done and also run ROWA to reduce any remaining PO4 whilst curing the rocks.

From what BRS's information showed, you don't need the acid. The acid will eat away some of your rock, but the bleach will just remove any dead matter. I've also heard of using Lanthium Chloride to remove extra phosphates after bleaching or doing an acid bath. I'm personally just bleaching then using some phosban or GFO.