Just a quick 'what would you do?'

[steve1981]

Hi. Im almost at the stage of filling my new 100g reef tank up with LR. I have some but need to buy a stack more.

I know someone who is selling off his tank and has a load that he is selling for £4 per kg.(LFS is about £11-£12 per kg. The problem is he said some has bubble and/or hair algae on it.

Would you buy it and try and clean it off BEFORE putting in tank? Would you give it a wide birth? What would you do??

Thanks, Steve

[JUNBUG361]

Me personally I would purchase the rocks. Clean up acid dip the rocks let dry for week(s)

[steve1981]

Is there any other way of 'cleaning' them quicker? I mean I don't know how bad they are yet but in general.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[laverda]

Rinsing them with hydrogen peroxide after scrubbing them will kill the hair algae, the pooped bubble algae and the spores from the popped bubble algae.

[steve1981]

Won't that kill any beneficial bacterial or the coralline algae?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Vinny Kreyling]

Since you will have some live rock already I would just kill it & be safer.
It will recover its purpose.

[LJLKRL]

Won't that kill any beneficial bacterial or the coralline algae?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes it will kill everything. You don't want all that bad algae in your new tank from the beginning.

[Johnseye]

Hi. Im almost at the stage of filling my new 100g reef tank up with LR. I have some but need to buy a stack more.

I know someone who is selling off his tank and has a load that he is selling for £4 per kg.(LFS is about £11-£12 per kg. The problem is he said some has bubble and/or hair algae on it.

Would you buy it and try and clean it off BEFORE putting in tank? Would you give it a wide birth? What would you do??

Thanks, Steve

I wouldn't take the chance. You can probably kill it all if done well, but what if any spores survive. Once it's in the tank it's near impossible to get it completely out.

[jacksonpt]

You're taking a chance regardless.

If you buy from the LFS, there is a chance it'll have some undesirables. Assuming it's a decent LFS, the chances are relatively low, but there is still a chance.

If you buy from your friend and use the rock as is, then then chances of "contaminating" your tank from the start are fairly high.

If you buy from your friend and "kill" the rock first, then the chances go down dramatically, depending on how thorough you are.

So in my eyes, it works out like this -
Buying from LFS: high cost, low risk
Buying from friend, using rock as is: low cost, high risk
Buying from friend, cleaning rock first: low cost, low-ish risk.

Knowing myself, I'd rather buy from the LFS. The extra cost is worth it to me to save the time and effort while keeping my risk low. You'll have to decide if it's worth it for you.

[Stickboy97]

Avoid the live rock from your friend, not worth the risk. And if you are going to kill it, why not order some rock off the internet. Find some pieces that fit your aquascape better. You already have some live rock, the new "dead" rock will seed quickly enough.

[Johnseye]

If and when I do it over I'll get new dead rock and cure it myself. I bought rock right from the ocean. Lots of great life. No bubble or hair algae, no aptaisa or asterina but several other undesirables.

[steve1981]

Thanks for your input guys. I ended up going to have a look and it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was. Most are clean with a few with some algae so I'll clean up the clean ones even more (scrubber) a then decide what to do with the excess after.

I know what you're all saying but at a quarter of the price new, it was worth a try I thought. There's nothing in my tank at the mo so checking the levels first, gonna put rock in with a clean up crew and see what happens. If it goes wrong, I'll clean out and re think. I would have just bought new but it weren't just a bit more money, would have been £600 more money.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[laverda]

A little hydrogen peroxide in the water will help keep any algae from growing. It really is amazing and takes very little.