Rock questions

[Chopper65]

Ok so I didnt think this one out concerning the weather. Its windy and almost freezing cold out today.

I hosed off my rocks yesterday and put them in bins with bleach water at around 1pm.

I think I read somewhere to soak them for 24 hours, but is it ok to soak longer? Some of them still have dark areas on them.

Id rather not have to mess with water and rocks outside today if I dont have to, but I will if its going to hurt the rocks leaving them in longer.

Also, after I pull them out, my plan was to hose them off, then soak them in dechlorinated water for a day, then do the Muratic acid bath for 20-30 minutes.

Hose off after that and soak in dechlorinated water for 24 hours, pull out and let dry.

Am I on the right track with this? Ive read so many ways to do it, just making sure Im doing this right.

[Sascha D.]

When I worked a fish store many years ago I would often see issues arise when people use bleach in their aquariums. Bleach can be used to cleanse equipment but gravel, rocks, and driftwood were another story. They often crashed their existing tanks using rocks that had been cleaned with bleach. People who used bleach to kill live rock had problems during start-up. I don't know if the rock absorbs it and I can't speculate why they had problems. It could be that they had too strong of a concentration or didn't properly rinse the rocks. If it were me, then I wouldn't leave it soaking in bleach water for longer than I had to.

May I ask what your goal is? The bleach will kill anything living on or inside of the rock. I'm guessing the freshwater and drying is to eliminate the bleach. What is the muratic acid bath for? The rock is already dead. Are you using it to open the pores because you believe the rock will leach PO4?

[Chopper65]

Well Im new at all this, Im just going by what Ive read to do to this rock.

Bleach it to help get rid of all the dead stuff on the rock and then do the acid bath to further clean it and

to get rid of phosphates. I cleaned it as well as I could with a pressure nozzle and picked off as much dead stuff as I could see.

But the rock was pretty smelly and had alot of dead stuff on it even after all that.

[Sascha D.]

I've used muratic acid a few times and it does help eat away some of the stuff on the rock. You'll still get a cycle, but it won't be as big as if you didn't use it. Here is an article about it if you're interested. You definitely want to rinse the rock after the bath. Mine came out covered in goop! I didn't pre-wash it like you did so it might not be so bad.

[Juiceman]

I have an extra jug of Muratic Acid if you need it.

I wouldn't worry too much about the bleach as long as it was a solution and not straight bleach. Once you pull it out, give it a good rinse and then dechlorinate it either by leaving it out in the sun or using a solution.

[Chopper65]

Thanks for the link Sasha, was a good read.

Thanks for the offer Juiceman, I have a jug of it already.

I think the ratio is 80 water and about 20 bleach.

Im going to leave it in overnight and deal with it tomorrow, maybe the wind and cold wont be

as bad tomorrow.

[Chopper65]

Ok after pulling the rocks out of the bleach water yesterday, I hosed them off real good and let them soak overnight in dechlorinated water.

Pulled them out today and hosed them off again, filled the bin with dechlorinated water, put the rocks in and then the muriatic acid.

I had 3 bins going, so they were in that from 25-40 min before I used baking soda on them.

I hosed them down real good and put the in brute cans with dechlorinated water and covered them.

What step should I take next? Are they ready to go in a tank as is and cycle, or do I need to do something else?

I still have probably a month or better before I have a tank and set up and ready for them.

Maybe lay them out to dry, or put some salt water in the bins with a powerhead and heater and cover them until Im ready to use them?

Help lol

[Sascha D.]

The rocks would be ready to go into the tank after the acid. It's no big deal if you don't have a tank yet. If you have a bacteria source, a powerhead and saltwater, then you could start the cycle early. It would be best if you did it in one container, but not necessary. Starting early won't eliminate a cycle in the new tank because you still have the blooms to deal with after adding sand and lights. However, it would shorten it somewhat.

[Reburn]

I would put it in a bin of saltwater and add a bacteria of your choice (I use instant ocean bio spira) and let it cycle while lightly ghost feeding. I would then test to check for p04 leeching weekly.

[Chopper65]

I wish I had a container big enough to put it all in, the best I can do is get it in 2 brute cans.

I got my test kits this week, so I can test for phosphates in it.

Im still undecided what to do about the two large pieces as far as aquascaping with them.

My salt should be here mon or tue, I need to get some bio spira though.

Im going to try to get pictures today of the two big pieces and see what you guys think I should do with them.

I should be getting my tank late next week or the week after. Im in no hurry for it though, I still have quite a few things to get yet.

Im buying Jens 180

[Chopper65]

Here is the biggest rock, I put the water bottle for scale. That rock is 18" from top to bottom. I think it looks more natural in the first pic with the bigger part on top, but what do I know lol

Ive already cut off 2" to flatten the bottom of it.

[jolt]

Definitely the left picture looks more natural

[Chopper65]

I thought so too, but getting that big sucker to stand on its own is giving me fits. The picture doesnt show it, but I flattened the bottom and took off 2", it was just over 20" tall

which to me is too tall.

[Sascha D.]

That's a huge piece! Are you looking for smaller rocks?

[Chopper65]

I have 2 large pieces and then about another 50 pounds of smaller stuff. The second piece isnt quite as large as the one in the picture.

Im waiting for the superglue gel to get here to see what I can do with all the smaller stuff. I think I have enough to do what I want to

do with all of it. I plan on using all of that, then I may buy a few pieces of live rock to add with it all. To sum that up Sasha, I really dont know lol

Im going to work on that big piece some more today and see if I can get it to stand on its own. I may have to lean it slighly on the back wall overflow if I cant get it to stand

on its own, but I really didnt want it in the middle of the tank and thats where the overflow is.

Do you have smaller dry rock available?

[Sascha D.]

I'm not sure either. I have 70-100 pounds of dry rock waiting to go into the tank. I went a little crazy on Black Friday and started remodeling my utility room, garage, and living room. I haven't had time to get into the rock and see what I have. I've been battling some serious problems in my tank for the last two months and I would like to wait a little longer anyway. I was curious if you were going to break that big rock up or try to use it as it is.

I drill all of my rocks and you might be interested in trying the same instead of glue. Super glue, epoxy, and cement have a short lifespan in saltwater. Here is how I did it.

[jolt]

I started my 32 gallon with pretty big pukani pieces from BRS. I thought they looked cool as-is even they they were big and pretty vertical. I now regret not breaking those big rocks up and so that I had less vertical and less massive pieces. They both restrict flow and make it hard to place corals so that they get sufficient light. Just factors I will make sure to consider in the future when aquascaping with big rocks ...

[Chopper65]

Ok I cut more off the bottom of the biggest rock, it now sits level and stable on its own. It is now 15" tall instead of the 21" or so that it started at.

I also did some carving to each piece and created a couple of caves and overhangs. I measured out the tank size on my carport as you can see in the pics.

The black battery in the middle is supposed to simulate the overflow box in the middle. Yes the pics are crude to scale but all I have to work with right now.

Neither rock is closer than 6" from the back part of the tank with quite a bit of space in front and the sides. The smaller of the big rocks is about 14" high

Thoughts and comments please.

Jolt I do get what you are saying about the vertical and the sheer mass of it. But Im not real sure I could break it up without ending up with a big pile of rubble. lol

I do seem to have alot of space left to put smaller rock structues without cluttering it all up and leaving swimming space, what do you guys think.

Thanks for the link Sasha, I do have some rods I was planning on using to make structures with as well. Your link gave me more ideas what to do with my smaller stuff.

The pictures show up better if you click on them.

[Sascha D.]

You're welcome. The reason I started the website was to have a place to write stuff like that down. I hope someone finds it useful sometime. Those rocks are huge! What size tank are they going into?

[Chopper65]

They are going in a 180....72 X 24 X 24

[Sascha D.]

Good dimensions. I like to leave the top 25% of the tank open for water flow and future coral growth. Some people don't like to let their corals grow big, but I do. It also gives the fish swimming room during feeding and doing fish stuff. If you crowd the tank with rocks then you'll have more broken pieces. I really wanted big rocks like that when I was setting up my tank, but I had to make due. They'll look awesome if you add some shelves into the sides.

[Chopper65]

Thanks for the reply Sasha, I really hate to break either of them up and since I shortened them both Im thinking they may work. The big one is 15" tall and the other is 14" but it doesnt have near the mass the other one does.

I agree shelves on it would help, right now on the big one bout the only place to put corals is on the top.

I still have 2 1/2 weeks before I get the tank, so I have time to play around with it. Im buying Jens 180

[Sascha D.]

I don't know what kind of corals you're after, but plating corals can be placed on the sheer sides. You could also let something cover it, like polyps or soft corals.

[Chopper65]

Im not really sure what coral I want, they are all so pretty lol

Thanks for the idea about placing them on the sides, Ive been looking for pictures of rocks like this to get ideas of what to place on them, or

how to even place them in the aquarium.

[Sascha D.]

Everyone has their own way of doing things. I decided to put my rocks directly on the glass. I connected rocks that could topple to base rocks and covered them in sand. Once the rocks were stable then I drilled flat rocks and created my own shelves as described in the link I sent. Flat surfaces are good for Euphyllia and branching SPS. I keep my soft corals on the sand bed and didn't make any spaces for them.

I drew this up in MS Word real quick. It's not fancy, but you see what I mean.