Nuking Rock

[Noober]

I was wondering the best way to nuke a live rock and make it bright white. In the past I have put my rocks in a really hot bath with a gallon of bleach in it. Left overnight, then filled with regular tap water and left over night. I drained it then I filled it up again and put a whole bottle of dechlorinator in the tub with it and left it over night again. Then I drained it and let the rocks dry. After that I put them in an icechest with some other live rock, only this time I wont have any other live rock. They stayed in the ice chest with a pump in it and some t5 lighting on it, i turned the lights off because algae started growing after a while. This time i probably wont even use lights because I dont want algae on them.
How long do you think it will take these rocks to cure enough to put them in the display tank? If i dont get any ammonia or nitrite or nitrate readings is it ready to go in? Any other ideas? Thanks a lot!

[gjuarez]

You dont want to add this live rock to your display, at least not immediately. If you really want to get nice and recharged live rock read a little bit on reefcentral on cooking live rock. You dont cook it, but that the term they use to have nice and phosphate free live rock.

Your rock will have to sit for a while, i am sure it has a lot of die off after the bleach bath. It has to grow the bacteria (aerobic) that grows on the surface of the live rock.

[jroescher]

Why are you wanting to kill your rock? Something bad on it?

[Noober]

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1319.jpg i dunno if thats gonna work lol, anyway that is the junk on my rock i dont want, i love the coraline but that dark green stuff dosnt scrub off and snails and crabs arnt eating it off. Thx for the reply, i hope ya can help hehe, Good day~
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1320.jpg

[Noober]

Ok here are some better pictures, I was wondering if any of you can tell me what some of this is.
In the first picture on the bottom right, Is that dark navy blue coraline, ive never seen that before. Anyway, on the rest of the pics you can obviously see the Purple, the Pink, and a lot of the Maroon coraline algae. What is the dark green stuff. its not coraline is it? Its really hard to get off the rock. Thanks & on to the pics! (hope you guys arnt on dialup)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1330.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1331.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1332.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1334.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1335.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1336.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1337.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/102_1338.jpg

[chark]

How long has your system been set up? Nuking the rock will not fix everything. You have to either wait for your tank to mature or fix the likely phosphate/nitrate problem. If you just put clean rock back in it will happen again without a fix.

[sampsonndelila]

I like the colors...

[fishypets]

Your rock looks good to me. You'd be better off adding a tang and getting a Mexican turbo snail.

[Noober]

Thanks to everyone for their replies. For the most part all the algae stopped growing, I think the tank is back to normal, I've got a 2 spot bristle tooth tang and an angel fish in there that both like to eat some algae. I hope the angel dosnt eat all my sponges though haha. Anyway Ive got lots of turbos ceriths and narites or however you spell them. Ive also got nassisurus or whatever. I have a conch and i used to have a nudibrach but he got eaten lol. I have a buncha crabs too but none of them wanna eat that dark green stuff. I guess I'll get another tang or two in the future and just upgrade my cleanup crew with some stuff i dont have like the mexican turbos and mabe some snails from hawaii. I'll add some filteration to the tank and try not to nuke the rock until all is lost haha, thanks and Happy reefing!

[corkyGramma]

How long has your system been set up? Nuking the rock will not fix everything. You have to either wait for your tank to mature or fix the likely phosphate/nitrate problem. If you just put clean rock back in it will happen again without a fix.
ditto

[JKLUSAF]

the rocks look ok to me

Justin

[Noober]

Yeh I changed my mind, screw nuking the rock, I'm going to work on getting my chemestry in check then i'm just gonna scrub the rock off and rescape it. Thanks for all the help guys!

[gjuarez]

Good choice!! I like the rock, nothing that some good ol mexican turbo snails cant take care of