Cleaning new live rock??please advise.

[TommyBoy]

New tank. Rock was cycled outside main tank and the rock & tank was set up last friday with a 2in dry sandbed in a 15GA minireef.
All that is in tank is a light cleanup crew at this time and cured rock. My rock seems to have alot of dirt all over it and i was wondering how detrimental would it be to remove rock and clean by swiching rock in bucket of same param. water. Most of my rock has nice color but seems to be covered over by alot of dirt. Would this be ok in this early stage? ALso could I take a toothbrush and lightly brush all areas which would be exposed to direct light in tank to really let the rock colors show? Or is this a big mistake as it would cause alot of life on rock to die. Opinions? Thanks

 

[slojmn1]

I used a turkey baster and basted my cycling rock a few times a day. I had the skimmer going and good circulation in the tank so this helped clean up some of the die off for the weeks of cycling. I suppose you could scrape off some of it, especially is you have dead sponges and such kind of hooked onto your rock. You do want to be careful to not scrape off live stuff though.

 

[-JB]

You should have no problem taking the rock out and giving it a good swish. It will remove a lot of the die off you want to get rid of and help preserve the stuff you want to keep. I've done it before when added new LR with good results. I usually do it in tune with a water change, before you dump the old tank water swish the rocks in it.