process for killing rock?

[Breezp]

I broke my tank down 2 years ago but due to moving away to school and a bunch of other reasons i still had rock in my sump that dried out and i still had some rubble in my sandbed that i left dried up for the last 2 years, i plan on using the rock in my new biocube but im not sure if i can just throw it in even though it has been dried for 2 years or if there was still stuff on it that i needed to kill before adding to my new tank

 

[LongIslandAndy]

I think being dried out for 2 years already killed it. I would remove any dead algae or dried up sponge and use it the way it is. The tank will need to be cycled and there is probably enough dead matter in and on the rock to start the process. Have fun and welcome back

 

[Breezp]

thats what i thought but i didnt want to start off on the wrong foot soo soon

 

[JARRETT SHARK]

I would bleach it and acid bath it to make sure all bad stuff is out of the rock,
then cycle it.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Bleach it and acid bath it!!!! What the heck do you think is in there, aliens? After that he should bury it in his yard because it would be too toxic to use.
Geez, it is for a nano cube maybe just go out and buy a couple of pounds
Just my opinion

 

[Breezp]

well i plan on buying some live rock a piece or two in order to speed up the cycling process

 

[Awibrandy]

bleach it and acid bath it!!!! What the heck do you think is in there, aliens? After that he should bury it in his yard because it would be too toxic to use.
Geez, it is for a nano cube maybe just go out and buy a couple of pounds
just my opinion

foclmfao​

 

[ellebelle]

Your rock is dead; you probably could just toss it into your biocube. You probably want to get one piece of live rock, or live sand to seed the tank if you are starting with totally dead rock.

If it were my tank, I would bleach and scrub the rocks before I used them just to be 100% sure that any bad juju was gone. But I could be paranoid.

 

[Breezp]

yea im going to be super cautious and test it pretty thoroughly too

 

[Awibrandy]

Breez, what do you think could have possibly survived for 2 years on those rocks outside of water? Spiders maybe, but then when you put the rocks in water those spiders will be dead.
What will you be testing for if you don't mind my asking?

 

[Breezp]

Awi, I had an immense amount of nitrates in my old tank, I would test and make sure that it didn transfer into the new cube, however any leftover nitrates would only help the cycle prosses rite?

 

[Awibrandy]

Yep, and with followed ro/di water changes you will get rid of them in short order. But you must get an ro/di. Tap water will only add more nitrates. That is what happened in my old tank. I didn't believe it until I got an ro/di, and saw with my own 2 eyes the difference it made. Look up my tank thread here, you'll see what I mean.

 

[Breezp]

Yea I have a 6 stage left from my old tank so I already got that covered

 

[Awibrandy]

Great! Think I got you confused with someone else that is insisting on setting up with tap water.sigh

You'll be fine! I didn't do anything special with my rock, and it was lr loaded with 6+ years of tap water nitrates, and God only knows what else. So far so good, although I am pretty certain there is still some nasties in there, but no bad critters.

 

[jrobbins]

treat it like you would any dry rock. cure it in the dark for a few weeks and you should be good to go. it will probably stink like all hell. might want to pressure wash it or scrub it first.

 

[bizarrecorals]

You dont have to do too much to it, rinse it out really good w/ tap, let it soak in the bucket for a day or two. if is dried for that long, is hard to believe anything is alive.