Using Clorox chlorine free bleach for rocks

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Ian14

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Hello, I picked up a bunch of rocks from the stream yesterday and I soaked them in a bathtub mixed with Clorox green works chlorine free bleach for about an hour. First of all I don't understand how it can be bleach if there is no chlorine. It says 95 percent natural. The picture shows the ingredients. If I soak it again with regular water is it safe to put in the aquarium. I read it is okay if it's regular bleach but these doesn't seem like regular bleachImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1389719396.250797.jpgImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1389719414.234535.jpg
 
Yeah, that stuff is not good to use in aquarium related capacities. Next time just go with regular bleach. If you insist on using them still then drain them, wash THOROUGHLY, wash some more, no seriously wash even more, and run them for a week or two with carbon before putting it with fish.

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is poisonous.

Next time check the MSDS (Material safety data sheet) for anything that you want to use for your tanks.
 
Products today that say they bleach, but are chlorine free, are usually based on Hydrogen peroxide, like your product is. Hydrogen peroxide isn't bad for tanks, not toxic, it breaks down very quickly into the same molecules water already has. Often used to dip plants to kill algaes.

The problem, as Mebbid pointed out, is the added detergent.. sodium lauryl sulfate. It makes the product foam up, helps remove greases, and is NOT anything you want in a tank. I would do just what Mebbid said, rinse, rinse, rinse and then sit in a bucket and run a filter with activated carbon for at least a week, to be sure the sodium lauryl sulfate is gone. SLS is found in a bewildering array of products, including toothpastes, shampoos, virtually all liquid soaps, lotions, etc.

Chlorine bleach also breaks down fairly fast. Chlorine gasses off into air quickly, being very volatile, leaving only the sodium part behind. Thorough rinsing and drying is all that's needed, or soaking in water with double dose of dechlorinator also works.

Btw, hydrogen peroxide has been used as a bleaching agent for a very, very long time. It used to be the way you bleached hair blonde, and it works extremely well on many common stains on clothes and objects. By itself at low concentrations it's pretty much harmless, aside from maybe bleaching something you spill it on accidently, but it's not nearly as basic as chlorine bleach is, so it does less damage to fibres in clothing. Also less load on the environment when it does break down.
 
I'd pick up some new rocks, myself. Then, put them in vinegar to make sure they don't fizz at all (unless you keep hard water fish). Finally, pour plain old boiling water on them and leave to cool. Heat kills parasites and snail eggs just fine. If they have algae, then bleach or hydrogen peroxide is OK but stick to regular bleach if you use it and rinse well.
 
Maybe I should just go get some other rocks then haha

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I agree you would have been better off with real bleach. I personally wouldn't ever put those rocks in with my fish ever. Not even after soaking for a year I. If you ever pick up rocks again just test them with vinegar. If they bubble they are bad don't use them. If they don't just go ahead and soak in regular bleach and then in prime for around 24hours. Then you should be good to go.
 
No, your rocks will be fine once you rinse them well. I have used dish detergent to wash grease from used tanks.. no fish has died after being in one of those tanks, but then, I rinsed them about six times after, until I didn't get a single bubble in the rinse water.

The rocks, because they are not nearly so smooth as glass, may hold onto traces of the SLS, so running them with carbon in a filter is basically insurance. If you rinse 'til you see not one bubble, you are probably fine. Me, I'd take the extra step of filtering to be sure, just in case.

EDIT:

And I disagree about rocks that bubble in vinegar being 'bad'. It is true that vinegar or stronger acids, [ I prefer to use CLR] will bubble up when exposed to calcium. They dissolve calcium. This is the mechanism that produces stalactites and other cave formations.. in limestone caves. But that does not mean the rock is bad. It only means it has calcium in it.

If you're keeping Rift Lake cichlids, rocks made of pure limestone, which is pure calcium, would be ideal. And many rocks only have narrow veins of calcium in them, and the amount of calcium they might leach into most tanks is negligible at best.

Where you need to be careful with high calcium rock is in tanks kept at pH that is below 7, or that must be soft, because then when they leach calcium it both hardens the water and raises the pH. But for most tanks, and most fish, a small amount of calcium in a rock is nothing to be concerned over.
 
One of the rocks I poured that bleach on turned white for a second will it was hitting it. What's that mean.
 
Got it. So should I keep the rocks or get new ones. It isn't that hard to get them the other hard part is physically varying them up

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Soaking them now. Tiny bubbles and I can smell a little chemicals after soaking in a bucket for an hour. Water isn't sudsy or anything. I just put them in a giant sink and have the drain halfway plugged to wear all the rocks are submerged but it's raining quick enough so it won't overflow. How long should I do that for?
 
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