Used rock

[ardsman]

A friend who got out of the hobby several months ago gave me a few items that he had no use for, 75 pounds of rock that has been left dry for three months is one of them, do I need to do anything special with it or is it safe to use as is? it looks very clean to me but I am but a humble newbie, the rock by the way is Pukani??? did I spell that right?

[thegrun]

If your friend's tank was high in either nitrates or phosphates before he broke down his tank I would give it an acid bath which will eat away the very top layer of the rock and remove most of the phosphates and nitrates. If he says the tank was low in nitrates and phosphates use the rock as-is.

[ardsman]

Thanks for the reply! the tank parameters were great, it was broken down due to ill-health, he just couldn't take care of it anymore. if i was to use acid on it what would i use?

[thegrun]

Do a search of this forum for "Acid Bath" for detailed instructions. Muratic acid works great. If there were no issues with nitrates and phosphates I wouldn't bother with the acid bath however.

[ardsman]

Ok thank you very much for your help, much appreciated.

[oakengineer]

Here's a good how-to thread on the topic:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914426

The acid bath is a pain in the butt, will change what your rock looks like, and will decrease the weight of the rock. If you can do without, its better. But if you have to do it, its still a lot better than paying $6 a lb for new live rock...

An easy insurance, put a couple pieces of the rock in RODI with a power head and test the water a few days later to see what it is leaching.

No matter what, you should thoroughly rinse the rock.

[oakengineer]

delete

[oakengineer]

delete. Sorry, I got confused.