Live Rock to dead rock + cooking

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#21
The acid does not take care of the phosphate in any way more than just killing near-surface organics and start them decomposing. Aragonite bonds phosphate in a permanent manner. The phosphate will unbond if dissolved, like a in a calcium reactor, but the bond holds in normal tank circumstances. What people perceive as leeching of phosphates is typically a result of older rock/sand not bonding any more. The stuff on the outside of the rock that contributes to the phosphate is complex organics that have not gone though the N cycle yet that just got killed.

Properly cooking rock will take months. I have a whole bunch if you want to see what it looks like after it is done. It is clean and just brown. There is an inch of goop and junk in the bottom of the barrel every few months that came out of the rock. If you really want to start over, then cook the rock for real. All of the rocks in my tanks were cooked for 6+ months while we moved and they are covered again coralline, pods, sponge and all other manner of creatures (including some pests that have since came back in from other sources like zoas and aiptasia).

If you don't want to take the time to cure the rock properly, then I would leave it in the tank and just declare war on the bubble algae by sucking it out during water changes (use the end of a stiff hose to scrap the rock), get some emerald crabs and even some fish. I had a Magnificent Foxface that would crush bubble algae that it could get to... and the emeralds took care of the rest in the tricky hidden places. If the N and P goes up during this process, then incorporate a carbon-based mechanism (vinegar, sugar, vodka) for a while to export. I would replace as much of the sand as you can when you are done. You could probably have this under control in a few months. Before you go adding a bunch of crabs, make sure that your WQ is good enough to support them.

Majanos can seed the tank from the sump.
 
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