cooking liverock?

mkpaulson

mkpaulson

Active Member
I'm looking for information on cooking Live rock, I know it's best to put it in a Rubbermaid tub with powerheads and a couple heaters, what I need to know is the temperature it should be at, and how long it should be left to cook. if anybody has any experience or advice in the process please let me know. thank
 
R

RanRoc

Member
Do you mean curing LR? I usually just make the water parameters (temp, alk, Ca, etc) as close as possible to the parameters of the main display tank (the tank that I put the cured LR into) while curing. To be safe, allow at least 4 weeks to cure. I've done a couple of batches in the past and used a small skimmer and a couple of water changes along the way (if ammonia didn't go down in a week). Some people use lights as well, adjusted to the same photoperiod of the main tank. I never used lights though.
 
Curtswearing

Curtswearing

Active Member
Originally posted by Mojoreef

Here is an idea for you, it is a little drastic but would help speed things up. If you have a bunch of LR that does not have any coral stuck to it but has hair algae I would remove it from the the tank and put it into a dark bucket with a PH and a heater and let it sit in thier for about a week or so. The lack of light will kill of the hair algae. This will also excellerate the shedding process from the rock. We used to call this cooking the rocks. If it were me I would go this route.
 
mkpaulson

mkpaulson

Active Member
ranroc, thanks but Actually this is some five year-old rock that has been in a tank that had a sandbed crash, looking to purge out phosphates, nitrate, before putting it into a new tank, Curtswearing I think that might be the info I am looking for.
 
addict

addict

Well-Known Member
'cooking' is a slang term for 'curing', so yeah, that's what he means. :D

When I did my rock, I just put them in a rubbermaid tub with an airstone and a powerhead, nothing else...
I did scrub the rocks down first with a soft-bristled toothbrush to remove the majority of any die-off that was present, and did a couple of waterchanges... one every two weeks (cured for a total of 6 wks).
Just make sure when you do your waterchange to churn everything up really good and blow out the rock to get any internal die-off out of the rocks... I was amazed at how much crud kept coming out even though I had cleaned them pretty well before putting them in.
Make sure and test the parameters every other day or so... will give you a good idea how quickly they're curing.

HTH.

[edit: oops... I guess that isn't what he means... but I'm pretty sure cooking is the same process as curing... after 5 years though I'm not sure if there's anything you have to worry about...]
 
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M

Montanareefer

Has been struck by the ban stick
Yup I am cooking LR right now. I have a few choice pieces I kept when I tore down my 80 gallon reef tank and have it in a rubbermaid tub with three PH's and a heater with no to very little light. Hope to add two - three show pieces that are fresh to seed the lower LR. :)
 
ScottT1980

ScottT1980

Well-Known Member
I have never heard of this process but it sounds interesting. So you intend to basically destroy everything on the rock and then "re-cure" it? I would PM Mojo or Boomer and perhaps we can figure something out, at least from a chemical standpoint. I would think a very low pH could free up both the PO4 and NO3 but I don't know how strongly or what type of bond the chemicals form to our liverock. I will do some digging...

Take er easy
Scott T.

Edit: Perhaps I am confused as well, but if your ultimate goal is to remove phosphates and nitrates, then I don't know if this is possible without putting it in such an environment that would destroy all the bacteria on your rock. Am I on the right track or in fact were you reffering to "re-curing" your rock?
 
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mojoreef

mojoreef

Just a reefer
No cooking and curing are two separate things. Cooking live rock is just a term we used way back when. Live rock is biologically set up pretty much the same way as a sand bed, is just in the form of the solid mass with no bottom or top. Live rock is susceptible to absorbing nutrients and organics the same way as sand beds due. The one difference however is that live rock does not have a top or bottom.
Through bacterial action (tugor) the detritus and organics will actually shed from the rock itself. This happens as bacteria populates, dies, and produces enzymes to reduce various elements within the rock. The result is a pushing action from the depths outward. In a normal tank environment the organics/detritus that is shed is either consumed by bacteria/detritus/algae on the surface of the rock. In the concept of cooking the rock the same actions apply with the exception that no light is allowed to hit the rock. This will take the algae out of the equation for fixing and using the detritus/organics that is being shed.
If you put the live rock into a dark bucket, keeping the flow and the temperature the same but eliminating any light source, the detritus/organics will shed from the rock and collect on the bottom of the bucket. From there it can be easily removed. What we have to understand is that when it comes to either the live rock or the use of live sand is very rarely do that either or both combined can keep up with the amount to of stuff we throw in our tanks (being a closed system). The result from this is that both become overlaidened with detritus and organics of various forms. Cooking live rock is a way of allowing them to catch up from the years of being behind. There is no preset amount of time on this process, it's just basically the longer the better. If you keep an eye on the amount of detritus coming-out of the rock and settling on the bottom of the tub you'll get a good feel for when it is not shedding any more.

Anyway hope it helped


Mike
 
Spooda420

Spooda420

Member
about 5- 6 weeks ago I had had it with the HA problem, I talked to curt and Mike about this and took there advise I took aout all the LR (185 lbs) put it in a 55g trash can and started to 'cook it' with a 500 gph pump heater abd a tight fitting lid so no light would get in there.

6 weeks later and about 400g of saltwater after water changes i have no HA left on the LR and its still covered in coraline and little bugs.

the cool think is just like mike was saying it sheds dietritus... the bottom of the trash can is covered in that stuff, this is after i used a stiff wire brush to clean all the HA off. just amazing on how much stuff actually get released.

so any way thanks curt and mike for the help, now i just need you guys to finish the basement so i can install the tank in the wall.

C
 
mkpaulson

mkpaulson

Active Member
thanks,Montanareefer, Spooda420 Those are the results I'm hoping for, thank you both for your experience in the procedure.
 
Spooda420

Spooda420

Member
Curt, tax season is almost over, you can hang in there for just a few more weeks. besides what else do CPA's really do when its not tax season? ...just move the bean from one pile to another pile right? just kidding.
 
Curtswearing

Curtswearing

Active Member
LOL!!! We don't move beans. We enumerate legumes and instruct others to move the legumes for us. When you say it with $10 words, it makes us sound more important.
 
Witfull

Witfull

Well-Known Member
i think curt is pulling our legumes....lol

and i thought cooking LR mean preheating to 375* and peeling back the foil :D
 
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