explain what "Cooking LR" mean

[nobody]

what is it, what does it do, why would you do it, and how do you do it?

i am assuming i dont set the oven to 450 and let them in for 40-45min??????????

[seasalt dreams]

no, it means placing them in the dark long enough to kill off everything on them. Usually in buckets of water with no lights in big garbage cans.
I am not sure if drying them out is another method, maybe someone else could chime in there?

[DarthOcellaris]

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=66551

that's probably the easiest way to tell ya LOL

[seasalt dreams]

yeah that works too

[Dagrape]

Basically you put you LR in a tub with some salt water, flow and a skimmer and leave it in complete darkness for 3 or 4 months. You should change the water weekly aswell. What it does is purge the rock of phosphates and all the nast stuff that it has absorbed from the water column in your tank. It is AMAZING how much detritus comes off the rock duing the process. The trick is to make sure you keep the water clean otherwise the rock will leach the phos into the water and then absorb it right back.

[nobody]

with heat? water changes? flow? and wouldnt that make it into dead base rock?

[seasalt dreams]

That is all explained in the link posted above.

[Rob_Reef_Keeper]

Originally Posted by ionracing

with heat? water changes? flow? and wouldnt that make it into dead base rock?

IME - that is what happened to my LR when I tried this.

[nobody]

im not going to make my 5.00 per lb rock into .99 rock

[kwjones]

It's not dead rock when you're done, it's full of bacteria. Coraline grows back quickly.

[Rob_Reef_Keeper]

Originally Posted by kwjones

It's not dead rock when you're done, it's full of bacteria. Coraline grows back quickly.

Sometimes the coraline will come back. I have seen plenty of tanks including my old tank where the rock stayed pure white.

[kwjones]

I still had spots of coraline on my rocks after cooking, so it came back pretty fast and started covering the cutting board on the bottom of my tank.

[Rob_Reef_Keeper]

You got lucky

[DarthOcellaris]

I've been cooking rock for the last 6 months now and still have some coralline.

[Jnicho]

I have a mix of 50/50 in my latest tank. Half of the rock came from an established local source (still had some die off of course). The other half was rock I had used in a previous system and was cooked. The LR looks nice, nice colors, lots of tube worms and other life. The cooked rock is very slowly getting coralline and a little bit of life. I'm sure it is great in terms of bacteria, all my tests have been 0's for a long time, but aesthetically it is taking a long time. Guess I'll have to go buy more corals to cover it up.