We be cooking!

[redwinger]

Well after wanting to do this for quite some time with the rock in the main display I decided to take the plunge. I have cooked rock before and have seen the difference it makes. I have been having brown wafer algae that is starting to take hold in the tank and has been spreading at a medium pace. I decided it was time to just pull the rock and start cooking away. I have been having alot of detritus build up over the past few months and I couldn't believe the amount that was hidden in areas where the siphon could not reach it was basically a ticking time bomb. I am going to be doing this in stages. Pulled half of the rock to cook now for 1-2 months. and will pull the other half after the first batch is done. I decided to do it this way as to not cause any more stress to the fish and corals than need be. I will post pics along the way to document this as best as I can, Because the results I have had in the past is amazing. Allthough it is a royal PIA the benefits are worth it.

[tico mike]

Hey John, maybe you can post descriptions of the pics so you can give a tutorial on this. I'm interested to see how you do it. I know the process, but it would help educate alot of folks in the club. In fact I wonder if we can have another page for our club as far as the informational side of things. It would help to have the info on this kind of thing just a click away.... What kind of fish are you thinking of getting?

[redwinger]

No other fish now after deciding to do this. Was thinking a rabbit of some kind. I will be posting more pics along the way. After taking out the rock and chisleing the corals off I dunked them swished then around and also scrubbed the crap out of them to get as much crap off before putting it in the cooking bin. Weekly I will be doing dunking swishing and scrubbing along with a complete water change. If some are not familiar with this method here is the scoop. Rock cooking is a way to basically get all undesireables off and the main thing OUT of the rock. With no light over a period of 4-6 weeks the bacteria consumes all the nasties that are trapped inside the rock, mainly PO4 which is the major cause of algae. Also our rocks are constantly sheddding over time. Shedding being detritus that falls off the rock and if not siphoned right away begins to rot and release PO4 and nitrates back into the water column. After the rock cooking is complete there is no shedding left to be done as all the detritus has been either removed or consumed by the bacteria. I forgot to take a pic of the water after the dunking and swishing, it was just nasty brown. Next week when I do the dunking swishing and scubbing I will take some pics so you all can see the crap. I will do this every week so you can see the process and best of all the results.

[JnS]

I think bleaching out the rock would work faster/better.

[Soltaker]

Cool. I am looking forward to seeing the progress.

[redwinger]

Well this is a piece that went in today. Covered in brown leaf algae and tons of detritus hanging from it allthough it is hard to tell from the pic.



Here is a piece that I had cooked for about two months. It was covered in crap and now look at it. No crap, no algae heck swish it around in water for 2 hours if you want and nothing is coming out of it.

[Irenicus]

How long did it take you to get all the peices off the rock?

[redwinger]

Took about 1/2 hour to take all the corals off.

[Graham]

FWIW, bleaching won't purge the rock of accumulated nutrients. You have to do it biologically and mechanically, not chemically.

John, FWIW, that brown wafer is not a high nutrient algae. Not to say that you won't be happy with your cooked rocks, but IMO what you had on your hands was in no way an emergency from what I can tell. All things considered, our tanks are ticking time bombs from the moment we set them up. Seriously. Some bombs take a long time to go off, though...

[redwinger]

Graham, it was an excuse to get me to do it. I have some other nasties that were starting to pop up and wanted to get it taken care of before it got problematic. I am just adding alot more time to the timer

[smeese]

I thought you tank looked great....you must be pretty anal I can not wait to see the finished product! I too have been stirring up detritus but just letting my skimmer catch it.

[Scott 3560]

I 2nd that smeese, his tank looked great and clean - corals were huge and the colors were bright. hate to see what he would think of my tanks

[redwinger]

Thanks guys but to me it was starting to look like crap. By no means emergency status but I would rather get problems taken care of before they become much worse and it is to late.

[gitsumpottery]

no one knows their tank better than the person who looks at it every single day.

I am with you on cooking rocks John, I have about 100 lbs of rock sitting in the garage that I can switch out with my existing rock (it's actually enough for two more tanks my size), and do it every once in a while. So far about every year.... I like to feed the lps, and by doing so, I feed a little heavier than I would like. A big skimmer is nice, but it never vacuums your rocks out, so there's always some extra nutrients hanging around.

Zac

[redwinger]

Here is a little update. The first couple of weeks I do this twice a week. Mix up enough water in a new tub and heat to equal temp. Then I take some of the water and fill 5 gallon pails half full. I then swish the rocks and scrub the crap out of them in the first bucket and then dunk in the second bucket to try and get as much crapola out of them and off of them. Here is the pic of the first bucket

Here is the second bucket.

Most use three bucketts but I have found in the first couple of weeks that two buckets are just fine

Afterwards I rinse the old buckets and make sure they are clean for the next round. I will try and snap a pic in the morning after everything is setteled so you can see the crap that came out.

It also can smell pretty bad at times, but when you think about what you are getting rid of it is worth it IMO