using dried out live rock

[kdogg85]

A woman my girlfriend works with just de-commissioned her 150 gal tank with bleach. And I went and picked up the whole setup(tank, stand, etc.) My question is can i use the live rock she bleached for base rock or should i trash it. And can i reuse the sand as well.

 

[melosu58]

I personally wont reuse the sand but you could soak or cure the LR and reuse it. When you soak the rock I would add some dechlorinator to the water.

 

[Sadielynn]

you can use the LR but I would not use the sand ... Place LR in a bin and use RO/DI water treat with a dechlorinator well change water every few days and retreat with dechlorinator , , and test for clorimine or chlorine , if they come back positive you can redo the steps above if after several treatments (say 12 or so the more the better ) trash and rebuy your live rock ... the chlorine and bleach is not good for any tank but especially salt
This may take a few times to leach it out but you may get it all .... use a power head as well to keep the water circulating no heater or salt is needed at this point
If you are in a hurry to get up and running toss the LR and start with "new" rock

 

[kdogg85]

Ok, the rock has been sitting out for sometime, does the same thing occur as in aging the water for a pwc. People say you can age the water and not worry about chlorine. Not in a hurry to get rock in the tank, so I'll just do what you guys recommended as that was what I was thinking myself. All of you don't know how much help you have been, so thanks a bunch.

 

[Sadielynn]

chlorine does not evaporate if I recall correctly the only way to remove it is with chemicals such as a dechlorinator /clormine remover....
If you are doing a tank DO NOT use tap water the are more nasties in that than you will want ...such as copper , lead, meds, chlorine, flouride etc use either RO/DI or distilled this will help you prevent algea out breaks and other things that may cause you to scratch your head and go HMMMM?!!?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

chlorine does not evaporate if I recall correctly the only way to remove it is with chemicals such as a dechlorinator /clormine remover....

That is not correct, Chlorine is a gas and it does evaporate with agitation or aeration. One of my best friends in college never used any water treatment, he just put it in a bucket with an airstone for 24-48 hours. Chloramine, however, does not evaporate.
From Wikipedia

Aquarium owners must remove the chloramine from their tap water because it is toxic to fish. Aging the water for a few days removes chlorine but not the more stable chloramine, which can be neutralised using products available at pet stores.

So if you're using municipal tap water instead of RO to age your LR, treat it. Otherwise you shouldn't need to, the chlorine bleach will get leeched out into the water and evaporate. But doing a few treatments with Prime wouldn't hurt.

 

[kdogg85]

I am using ro water. i have my own unit and took some of the made water and tap water to the lfs and she told me the ro had 0 tds and the untreated tap had 64 tds. I have the rock in a tote with ro water being changed every 2 days. have tested and didn't get more than .25ppm of chloramine. No chlorine either. I am going to let it set for another month and then try to seed it with a piece out of my tank, if it works I will put it in my tank then down the road I will have rock for the 150 setting in my den.

 

[thincat]

I'm guessing you are setting up a SW tank. Why such a long wait on the water? FTR just showed you that information from Wikipedia and it said that chlorine gas evaporates but chloramine does not. If you got only chlrine it will evap. within 28-48 hours. Then again if you have chloramine no matter how long you wait it won't evaporate. So you would have to get a dichloramine product.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Wait - are you saying your RO water have 0.25 ppm chloramine? That would be imposssible, pushing chloramine through an RO membrane would be like trying to drive a bus through a straw.

BTW your untreated tap water is almost as good as my RO water. Our tap water is about 500 ppm and my RO spits out about 25ppm.

 

[kdogg85]

no the ro water has 0tds. The rock i am leeching was showing .25 ppm of chloramine. Just checked it today and showed .14ppm of chloramine