Curing Live Rock with Old Water

BigFishy

Reefing newb
I recently upgraded to a new 70 reef tank. The live rock from my old tank is currently in the curing process. I took the live rock and scrubbed them down. I left them in a bucket for one week (WITHOUT water). I wanted the rock to die. The rocks had diatom on them.

So, how do I make them alive again?

I was planning on scrubbing them down again then doing the normal curing process.

Every five days I do a water change in my new tank to keep the cycling process going right. I was thinking that I can take the water from those water changes and use that for the curing live rock. It has bacteria in it to get the cycle going, correct?

Bad idea or good?
 
Diatoms are not bad. And certainly no reason to kill live rock. You will get diatoms in your tank usually from using tap water -- it doesn't have to do with the rocks.

Now that the rocks are dead, the only way you can make them live again is to mix them together with other live rocks. So you basically have to buy new live rocks with which to seed them. It will take several months for them to become live again.

It was a bad idea to kill all that live rock over diatoms. :( You are going to get diatoms no matter what.
 
So, I should put new live rock in water with them while curing them or put the dead rock in the tank. I think the second idea is bad.
 
Every five days I do a water change in my new tank to keep the cycling process going right. I was thinking that I can take the water from those water changes and use that for the curing live rock. It has bacteria in it to get the cycle going, correct?
whats in the tank? if you have corals and livestock the answers going to be tricky
 
It doesn't really matter if you used water from an existing tank to cycle dead rock. The bacteria reside almost exclusively in the rock and sand-- very little is in the water column. So, as biff said, the only way to make rock live now is to seed it with living rock.

It sounds like your 70 is still a new tank, and probably still cycling. Therefore, I'd assume (and hope) that you have little or no livestock. If that's the case, just put the dead rock into your tank. If that's not the case, take a few small pieces of live rock from your tank, and add them to the dead rock in a rubbermaid container. Don't forget to heat the water and put a power head in to keep water moving. It doesn't matter if this water is new salt water or re-used from your tank.
 
It doesn't really matter if you used water from an existing tank to cycle dead rock. The bacteria reside almost exclusively in the rock and sand-- very little is in the water column. So, as biff said, the only way to make rock live now is to seed it with living rock.

It sounds like your 70 is still a new tank, and probably still cycling. Therefore, I'd assume (and hope) that you have little or no livestock. If that's the case, just put the dead rock into your tank. If that's not the case, take a few small pieces of live rock from your tank, and add them to the dead rock in a rubbermaid container. Don't forget to heat the water and put a power head in to keep water moving. It doesn't matter if this water is new salt water or re-used from your tank.
Bingo!
 
The rocks didn't just have diatoms on them ... I with held information. They were in a tank that had copper fittings to the filter. They were exposed to the copper for a little less than a month. I took them out when I shut down that tank. The plan is that (with some luck) I can get all the copper out of the rocks by scrubbing them down very well multiple times.

Then I'll cure them. But it's good to know that I'll have to put actual living live rock with them during the curing process and not just used water.

Thanks for the info!
 
The only way that I'm aware of to remove copper from rocks is to do multiple acid baths. And even that isn't 100% effective. You can't scrub them down to remove the copper. And letting the rocks dry out won't get rid of copper either. It's a metal. It's on the rocks whether they are in the water or out.
 
The copper has probably leeched into the rocks. This copper will slowly get released back into the tank. IMO, I would ditch the rock and get some new base rock to seed with some new live rock. I just dont think it would be worth the effort to try and remove whatever copper is there.
 
Yea, I read about acid baths and the effort required. And still like you said, not 100% effective. Maybe I will just throw them away. The only reason I wanted to keep them is because two of them were pretty cool looking and together they made a big awesome cave.
 
Just when I thought they were going into the garbage tonight ... you save them!

I didn't know that I could use them in a fish-only or quarantine tank. GOOD TO KNOW!!! I plan on setting up a fish-only tank in a couple of months. So, I'll store these till them.

Thanks a bunch!
 
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