"Cooking" live rock - 10 gal. start-over

[Huffers]

Well I've had it! I don't know if its just Monday or if I've really had it but I'm done fighting hair algae! I've tried everything! (Phosphate remover, RODI water, added a refugium full of chaeto). Nothing has worked! So I've decided to play hard ball. I'm going to completely disassemble my 10 gallon nano reef and basically start over. I'm going to replace the crushed coral substrate with plain aragonite sand and going to attempt to "cook" my live rock. From what I understand this process will help my rock leech out the unwanted detritus, phosphates and nitrates that may have accumulated in it over time. Does anyone have any experience with this process? I'd like to hear about your experience. Hopefully this will help and ill have my tank back to normal soon. I've already started mixing 5 gallons of fresh saltwater that will keep the rocks in a dark container to kill off all algae and release the bad stuff.

Here goes nothin!

 

[Craigj247]

Can I see a picture before you take it apart

 

[Huffers]

Yea ill try to post one. From afar my tank looks pretty good. But up close the rocks and substrate are just covered with various types of algae. The tank just looks dirty at times due to the algae even though my water is perfect.

 

[Craigj247]

I am sure you are sick and tired of going through this but what are the changes and methods you have tried to eradicate this issue....

Also a few questions :

How often do you do water changes and how much?

How many fish do you have in there?

What is the feeding routine and quantity?

Do you dose the tank with phytoplankton?

Do you have any bio media other than live rock?

Do you have a protein skimmer or uv sterilizer?

Have you got a deep or shallow sand bed and what are the critters you have to maintain the sand bed?

Sorry for all the questions but it will give me a bit of an idea of what the tank is going through

 

[Huffers]

Yes I do a 15% water change every week. I only have 1 mis-bar percula clownfish. Have several different types of zoas, Xenia, and mushroom corals. I only feed once a day either marine flakes or frozen brine. I feed very little. No I don't dose with phytoplankton. I run chemi-pure elite as well as maintain a 24/7 lit refugium in a hang in back filter. I do not run a protien skimmer or uv sterilizer. I have a shallow sand bed that is maintained by 4 blue leg hermits and 1 turbo snail.

 

[Huffers]

Would it be better to "cook" the rocks or boil them and then let them cycle before adding them back to my system?

 

[uh.oh...]

Don't boil them! You can airsolize (sp?) toxins and seriously hurt yourself. Especially if you've had zoas.

 

[Huffers]

Well I wasn't planning on boiling the zoas with the live rock.....

 

[uh.oh...]

Not just zoas are poisonous. Who's to say what's on that rock? If you really want to kill everything just use bleach or vinager

 

[Craigj247]

Ok in my opinion you can do the bleaching thing but once you put it back. In the tank I think in a few weeks it's pretty much going to be the sane story again.... I think you need to get to the bottom of as to why algae is forming in the first place.... There clearly is a chemical imbalance and until that is addressed I think it is going to just be a temporary solution.

The best thing that I can suggest is :

30% water changes every 3 or 4 days....

Increase water circulation in tank if required...

Run lights for less of a time....

Scrub algae while syphoning it out....

Maybe try introducing a sea hare or lettuce nudibranch....

I too have a 10 gallon that was going through a similar issue and I solved the problem by just blackening out the side of glass that was facing a window.

Good luck buddy an don't forget the pics

 

[Huffers]

Here's a pic of it about 2 weeks ago. Like I said, from a distance it looks good but up close the algae is just all over these rocks. I literally have to pick off algae around my yellow polyps once a week. Problem was I bought live rocks covered in algae to begin with cause I thought that the algae would be beneficial. Now I hate it. So I've decided to go ahead and cook the live rocks to get them to release all nitrates and built up phosphates. Then I will go ahead and changed my substrate from crushed coral to aragonite white sand. These rocks were purchased from petco so they weren't real high quality to begin with. But hey that's all I have in this area. I think going this route will be better than boiling them and I'm not real high on using chemicals like bleach and vinegar.

 

[Craigj247]

That is a cool tank dude... Wasnt aware that the rocks came into the tank with algae.... In that case I would say before boiling just tanks them out and scrub them clear with a hard brush and do a 50% water change in the tank before putting them back in and see how it goes.... Remember to use salt water when washing and scrubbing as you dot want to get rid of all the beneficial bacteria in the rock....

Good luck buddy!

 

[Huffers]

Ok we'll I'm not going to boil them. I'm attempting a process referred to as "cooking" the rocks. It's not a literal application. The purpose is to remove all built up detritus and phosphates. Hopefully once the process is complete and my substrate is changed I won't have this problem anymore.

 

[Craigj247]

Ayt keep is posted...

 

[squillaempusa]

so what happened??

and... so what happened?