???how to cure live rock and sand???

[envy]

How would I go about curing my live(dead) rock and live(dead) sand. I have had them for a couple of years in closed 5 gallon buckets. From what I have herd is run it in a rubber made container for a couple of weeks and then it should be ready. Any advice would be appreciated on how to start this.

[ramsey]

If it's all dead and dry, I would rise the sand really well. The soak the sand in RODI water and test for phosphates. If you detect phosphates, you may have to use a chemical that would absorb the phosphates.

As for the rock, what I did was soak the rock in tap water and bleach (9:1 ratio) for a couple of days. I then drained the bleach water and soaked it in tap water for 24 hours. I drained and soaked it in tap water three times. Then I dried the rock out again. Once dried, I soaked the rock in muriatic acid and tap water to remove phosphates. Then did a few 24 hour soaks in tap water and dried the rock for a few weeks. The rock is sparkling clean. It's a lot of work but I wanted to make sure I didn't have phosphates leak into my tank slowly. If you search reef central you cn find posts about it. IMPORTANT: make sure there's no bleach left in the rock before you soak it in acid. Bleach + acid = mustard gas

[envy]

thank you for the response is this the only way to make it useable and sand is dry

[FireWater]

Not the only way. It's very thorough way though.

Main thing you want to do is make sure the rocks are clean. I have soaked rocks in a brute filled with saltwater and a power head and then did water changes. Temperature regulation and removing impurities is the key.

Put the work in now to help avoid issues later.

[ramsey]

What John said. There's several ways to do it.

[envy]

I was gonna use a rubber maid container with a rio 1100 pump for circulation and let that sit in salt water for a month changing 50% a week would that work and i was thinking of doing the same to the sand

[FireWater]

I personally would lose the sand. Buy something a little newer. I would rinse the rock and scrub it. Then start your process.

[envy]

I was thinking of buy new live aragonite reef sand but was wondering if i could do the same to this

[ramsey]

IMO, the packaged live sand stuff is a waste. Get a quality dry sand and save some money. The main reason you don't want to use the old sand is that it's going to be very hard to rinse and get all the old detritus out and it will most likely have phosphates built up in it that will leach out. I like the caribsea dry special grade reef sand.