"cooking" live rock

The basics are:
Place rock into rubbermaid or whatever you have that can hold water.
Place water into container.
Place powerhead and heater into it as well....crank the heater up to like 85+.
Then cover it up so as there is no light to feed the algae, and do water changes about twice a week if possible.
I did this for about 2 months and it cleared up pretty much all of my bad algae, even had some zoas survive.
As for the time it takes depends on your water changes and how stubborn your algae is.
Hope this helps
Josh

 

Hooray for not being able to post.

In summation: Sugar. Try it. It worked for me.

 

Here's a thread with some info (including a pretty lengthy description of the exact process someone used) - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=437342

Here's another thread with some more discussion on the effectiveness - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=485572

 

Well I removed about 70% of my live rock and managed to jam it all in a 20 gallon tank. I have it covered and heated. I didn't read about trying to get all the stuff off untill I was done. I guess I will dunk all the rocks next. What would happen if I used tap water? I have a well so no chlorene and nitrates are below 10ppm. I think once its back in the 20 with asw it will be dilutted and be fine.
Sorry about my spelling but I don't want to download this spell check and I can't copy and paste into my word program.

 

I have my own technique though you may think it a bit extreme. I've got 30 pounds of live rock that has sit through two winters on my patio. I don't think I'll have any algae or aptasia problems when/if I put it back in the tank.

If you don't want to put it outside for 1+ years, a week in a bucket of freshwater would probably get the job done too.

Chris

 

The point of cooking is to not kill the rock, and though some people think freshwater won't kill the denitrifying bacteria it will definitely kill most everything else. Personally, with the results I got from dosing sugar, I'm not certain why anyone wastes their time and money with "cooking".

 

I suppose if you must keep your bacteria alive, it's not a good way to go, but you can recolonize your rock with bacteria easily enough.

What's your sugar method?
4 parts flour, 3 parts sugar, 1 part yeast, cook for 3 hours and top with icing?

 

Posted By tibbs2 on 01/07/2008 3:57 PM
I suppose if you must keep your bacteria alive, it's not a good way to go, but you can recolonize your rock with bacteria easily enough.
What's your sugar method?
4 parts flour, 3 parts sugar, 1 part yeast, cook for 3 hours and top with icing?
From experience, drying rock out will kill your algae and other undersireables, but leaves an awful lot of other problem nutrients in place. The best way I have found is to cook it. Its a PITA, but it has been very effective for me. 

 

Cooking keeps your pods alive as well not just the bacteria.


It also cleans your rock as the bio mat on the rock sheds and you change out the water. I've never seen the increased temp thing and I read up on it quite a bit before I did it.

Worked for me.

 

now that i think about it, i never did put a heater into my rubbermaid. I just left it in the garage for 6months and all the nasty stuff was gone. I also don't remember where I read the heater and cranking it up or even why it was necessary, so I say screw the heater and just throw a powerhead in it.

 

you don't want it to freeze, but the bacteria can survive in a large range of temps. a basement works perfect for cooking.