Rock Cooking Q & A

[jlscrug]

I have been cooking different batches of rock for about 8 months. My first few batches came out spectacular in about 2-3 months. Now I am working on a batch to go into my main display tank. I hand picked this rock from several sources over several months to get the exact pieces I was looking for. The rock has been cooking for about 3 months now and I am getting very little sediment however, I still have some short, very well attached algae that doesn't appear to be any closer to die off than it was when I first put it in. All other micro algae on these rocks are gone, as is most of the corraline algae. I even added a emerald crab to the tub to see if he would pick it off and turn it into something I can export. I am now considering removing the two pieces that are effected with this determined stuff and just letting them bake in the sun for a few days and then returning them to the tub to slough off all the dead stuff and start the bacterial cycle over again. Anyone else had this experience? The rock is in a rectangular cooler with hinge lid, in the shade on my porch. It is possible that there is a very small amount of ambient light getting in the crack between the lid and the cooler where the elecrtic cords come out of the cooler but it has never been a problem before.

[NoSchwag]

If you are really dunking and swishing like you're supposed to be, I would imagine that the algae would be exhausting it's nutrients (assuming it's a high nutrient algea) soon . Can you get a pic?

I would say scrub it off with a brush and dunk/swish it in some clean water, help it along.

[Boat Racer]

The po4 will be the last to go after long term cooking so some algee may be stuborn enough to cling to life.Why cant you use a dental pick or something to get it off the rocks?

[jlscrug]

Originally Posted by Boat Racer

The po4 will be the last to go after long term cooking so some algee may be stuborn enough to cling to life.Why cant you use a dental pick or something to get it off the rocks?

I am worried about doing that as it may leave tiny pieces attached in crevices that I cannot get to. Then if I couldn't see it I would assume that it was all gone only to find out when I put it in my tank that it would come back. Terrestrial vegetation has little appendages called rhizomes that do this and I am sure marine vegetation has the same sort of thing but I don't know what they are called. I have not had any nusiance algae in my tank in a long time and I am a little paranoid...or OCD...

What would be the pro/con of just pulling those two pieces out and letting them bake in the sun for a few days? The only thing that I can think of would be possibility of the algae producing a resistant spore that would survive the ordeal then coming back later.

[jlscrug]

First picture shows the crack in the cooler that MAY possibly let a little light in, however, the part of the rock that the algae is on is facing down so no light could get to it anyway.

Last two pics show the nusiance algae in question...extremely hearty stuff.

In retrospect I have been a little lazy with water changes but I have started mixing up a new batch of fresh just now.

[Boat Racer]

Two things.First Yes you are letting light in by that crack.You need to drape two blankets or towles over the cooler to stop that light interuption

Second,I would scrape those areas where the algee is growing with a chisle or file.It wont look as bad as you might think and remember the rock will cover back in coraline so those scraped spots wont be an eye sore.

I wouldnt bake the rocks in the sun because that will kill anything you have on there and the rock would be crap after that.

I had all kinds of life start showing back on my rocks in the last month after cooking them.Trust me they are there and doing that would kill all those little life forms like sponges,featherdusters,tunacites,coraline etc...

Scrape,chisle or whatever it takes and cover the cook tub with blankets to keep that light out.You could also cut little slots in the lid that would allow the cords to go in there and then the lid could close completely

[tdwyatt]

I concur on the physical removal. Bake the pieces you remove in the sun, or use bleach, the bleach will take a week or so to disipate, but it will remove itself, just make sure the rock does not smell like bleach when you get ready to put it back in the tank.