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So I have about 65lbs of rock that I am drying out to aquascape later. It was bought as dry rock and was only in the tank for a year. Do you think I still need to cook it?
Is there anything you are seeing that leads you to think you might need to cook it? Algae problems? It can never hurt to cook rocks that have been in water and making them bacteria driven instead of algae driven. The process would better be described as "removing Phosphate from rocks" than cooking.

How long before you will be ready to use it again? If you have the 6 months or so to cook it, have a place to do it and the patience then I would say to cook it.

In the end, its something you have to decide based on what you see and what your plans are for the next 6 months or so.

Good luck with it.
 
If you are finding dead animals in the rocks then it is definitely a candidate to be cooked. It will take all the dead tissue and use it as fuel to start the process and get it setup as a bacteria driven setup and you will end up with good clean rocks when its over.
 
Interesting read!
It looks like it definitely takes more to be sure phosphate doesn't build up in your rocks than previously thought! Also kinda makes me question why people even use LR if they constantly suck up phosphates. Seems much easier to avoid that variable in the equation.
 
Will cooking rocks kill sponges?
generally yes, but if you are careful with how the cooking is done, you could keep some of the sponges around. if you feed the water during the "cooking" process you can keep the sponges alive. you will still be removing the detritus. it will just take longer for the "cooking" to occur. if you are really interested in keeping a rock with sponges, then i would put not "cook" that rock, and use it as a seed rock for when the rest of the LR is done "cooking", then either place that seed rock near the top of the LR structure to allow it to "cook" in the system, or remove it and "cook" it on its own.

G~
 
Quick ?

Not trying to hijack, but i woke this morning to find my heater had went south and heated my tank to almost 100. Luckily I was in transition and had no fish and just some coral. I think the coral survived along with crabs and snails. But my coralline algae looks a little different. You think it got toasted? btw it totally cooked out the bristle worms
 
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