Cooking rock

scootingblenny · 10-19-2006, 03:17 PM

ok, so far its been 2 1/4 months that ive been cooking my rocks. They have been going at about 76 degrees which i recently changed up to 80 degrees a week ago. I hadnt thought of checking the tubs for phosphates so i dont have any previous readings before this week.

i just did a 100% water change and swishing on my tub of rock and tested the phosphates. the new tub of water that i just put the rocks in is at 1ppm but the old tub of water was also at 1ppm, shouldnt there be less phosphates in the new tub?

also, i found some hair algae and new bubble algae on one of my rocks. After 2 1/4 months shouldn't most algae be dead and stopped growing?

as a final question, how should the rock look when its nearing the end? should it look like it did when i bought before any algae grew on it when it was light tannish or should it still be grey and brown? my rock still looks brown and grey and there is a noticible difference between the parts that were covered by other rocks and no algae grew and the other parts.

thanks

Fly Guy · 10-19-2006, 03:49 PM

The grey and brown is ok to some extent......some rocks are just that color..........

the NEW tub of water testing dirty indicates you are starting with dirty water water in the first place, as otherwise it would be impossible. It takes more than a coule of days for the phosphates being turgored out to even be registered in the new water column.

I hate to say this.......but if the entire time you have been using dirty water to cook in, the entire process will have been infintiely less effective as new water weekly with ideally zero TDS (before adding salt of course)of any kind is a key part of the process.

Have you been swishing and changing the water out on a weekly basis??

And you should test your source waer it sounds like

scootingblenny · 10-19-2006, 05:03 PM

i retested my water, i mustve been using a dirty test tube

. so about the rocks still having grey stuff, thats ok. the new reading was zero

Leverage Lad · 10-19-2006, 05:07 PM

Are you keeping the rocks in the dark?

scootingblenny · 10-19-2006, 07:03 PM

Leverage Lad · 10-19-2006, 07:13 PM

The reason that I asked is I am about to cook some DIY rock and thought that keeping it in the dark would stop any algae from growing.

BLEEZY · 10-19-2006, 07:13 PM

judging by everything you have said, you are keeping it in the light and you are doing too big of waterchanges and you have dirty tap water and if you havent been changing the water and swishing the rocks weekly then you didnt help anything, i would think that you killed everything by not changing the water and changing 100% rapidly, but the fact that you have algae is good.
2 months is quite a while for the bacteria to still be alive without anyfood or wc's, so post up your results for am,ni,na and try to get a salifert test kit for nitrate, and try not to use a dirty test tube again.

my questions are, what is your water source, do you cure your water before wc's, have you been changing the water weekly and swishing the rocks and do you have circulation in the tubs, and most importantly have you been testing for am,ni, na? you mention testing for phosphate but nitrate and the others are far more important.

good luck!

Fly Guy · 10-19-2006, 07:23 PM

ummmmm ?????

What are you talking about???????

it surely has nothing to do with cooking rock, at least not in the sense you describe NOR scooting blennys situation as he presented it????

I would ask you this scooting blenny.

HAVE you been changing the water out weekly?? Do you hve the water circulated AND aerated??
You source water is fine it sounds ike, and you have been keeping it in the dark.

Youre not keeping corals here, assuming the rock has been cycled, there is not reason to measure anything but phosphates, and to be honest, i dont think most people who have cooked their rock have even doen that. They just keep up on the weekly swishing and 100% waterchanges and let time take care of the rest. I do like to measure for phosphates as i like to know the progres that is being made.

scootingblenny · 10-19-2006, 08:39 PM

Source water is in fact fine, it was a dirty test tube. I have been doing 100% WC's weekly and i have a power head circulating and aerating the surface of the tub which is covered up in complete darkness.

my corals are in my tank and doing fine, the rocks are being cooking in 30 gallon tubs in my garage

scootingblenny · 10-19-2006, 08:42 PM

btw, no ammonia, no nitrite, low nitrates and phosphates as of previous water change are at 1ppm, 0 in new tub so far

Fly Guy · 10-19-2006, 09:04 PM

Sounds like you have it moving forward fine...i would just suggest scrubbing any spots of algae that exist off when you swish and swish as violently as you can when you swish and change each week.

It IS a little odd that there is new algae growth.......are you sure it isnt just remnants that you didnt notice???

If you happen to have anything nasty like bryopsis, i would even go as far as the Twitterbait method of bryopsis removal and take a blow torch to it.

I havent done that myself, but i surely would if there was bryopsis, and i like the idea

Scrub and swish...

Happy cooking : )

scootingblenny · 10-19-2006, 09:13 PM

will do with the scrubbing; it could very well be old, im not very quick to notice things.

i think twitterbait may have taken the term "cooking" a little to seriously

ill wait a while before i torch my rock, thanks for all the help

DrFish33 · 10-19-2006, 09:51 PM

Is cooking rock illegal or is it just buying the rock to cook illegal? Or is it both? lol