Cooking LRs ??

[koniyakutz]

Hi guys,

My friend just ordered a 5ft marine tank and it will take 2-3 weeks to arrive(tank+ some renovation works).

Meanwhile, he has purchased 150kg of LR and is currently soaking them in freshwater. According to him, its called 'LR cooking', the freshwater drive out all the crabs/worms and also, cleanse the LRs(he mentioned something about the LR expelling puffs of dirt).

After the soaking phrase, he will scrub the LR and then give it a final rinse before placing it in his tank.

He paid $5/kg for those LRs, won't the LRs be pretty dead after 2-3 wks in freshwater?? Waste of $$ to do that??

[weisoon]

Really waste of money....better off buying dead rock at $3 or cheaqper. What he learnt from 'rock cooking'is all wrong.

[Lester]

Really waste of money....better off buying dead rock at $3 or cheaqper. What he learnt from 'rock cooking'is all wrong.

hmmm wat is rock cooking ???

do we reali cook them in the pot ???

[Kelmen]

From my reading in RC, its purely submerge the LR in freshwater and go dark for a period. Its effectively kill (probably) all living things on the LR. No fire involved.

[ervine]

wah lau then why buy LR? the whole purpose of buying LIVE rock over DEAD rock is that there are microorganisms and bio-diversity already there... that's something money can't buy man... (figuratively)..

Please don't cook, dip in FW (for long), bleach or other wise kill an already live rock... if you want then just go buy some dead rock cheaper and saves u the trouble of killing of all the good (and some bad) stuff on the rocks

[blueheaven]

I agree with what is said, it is definately a bad practice

Tell your friend to get good quality LR with no crabs or worms

Its expensive but worth every cent

[mUAr_cHEe]

I agree with what is said, it is definately a bad practice

Tell your friend to get good quality LR with no crabs or worms

Its expensive but worth every cent

no offense... and no link to my blasting u in the other thread....

but i dun think such a thing exist.... good rocks with no harmful things inside....

i bought so called good rocks... x-rayed for harmful stuff.....

still got so many mantis inside........

pls tell me where u can get this 'clean' rocks? i am really seriously interested to know....

(SERIOUSLY!!! NOT being sacarstic.)

[blueheaven]

Haha I wouldn't post something I didn't have, would I?

I got my rocks from CF and till date, no crabs or worms or anything except a myraid of coralline

[mUAr_cHEe]

Haha I wouldn't post something I didn't have, would I?

I got my rocks from CF and till date, no crabs or worms or anything except a myraid of coralline

i am not doubting u.....

thats why i ask u where u got yr rocks from....

PEACE!

make love, not war....

but of course i don't want to do a micheal jackson... so thats why i not touching BH yet... i will just wait till he is 21. *waits patiently*

[blueheaven]

5 more years and you can touch all you want j/k

The LRs I got from CF are really good (no kidding)

[woonming]

Dont soak in freshwater. Either you dip in freshwater or pour hot boiling water over it should you feel that there is pest inside which refuse to come out even after a quick freshwater dip.

Reason: If you soak in freshwater your whole toliet and home will sink !!!

If you intend to kill the rocks just pour hot boiling water and let it cool down, this way your home or room will not be smelly.

I only did it once as i wanted to kill a mantis inside which it refuse to come out no matter what i did and killed 5 of 8 fishes i had.

[madmac]

From my reading in RC, its purely submerge the LR in freshwater and go dark for a period. Its effectively kill (probably) all living things on the LR. No fire involved.

Its not freshwater but clean, fresh sea-water, usually done for 2 odd months, with a weekly change of water. Its meant to be done in the dark, so only photo-syntatic life-forms die, leaving only the 'good' stuff left in the rocks. Bacteria is not light dependent so your rocks can be used right away after being "cooked".... i.e. no need to cycle tank.

rock cooking

[hotlemond]

i didn't know about this term but i did cycled my LR in a tub cover up from lights with heavy aeration. water change was done every weekend for 6 weeks with alot of gunt from the skimmer everyday.

For the first few days i could see large bristtleworms on the top part of the rock. I didn't pick them out but the first water change saw many dead ones and crabs too. Subsequent water change saw less of them til nothing but dirt at the end of the 6th week.

The LR came out white as a paper. I did a high salinity dip and there wasn't any hitchhikers.

But I did a mistake of adding some new un cured rocks together into the main tank and now I am having headache with those nasty crabs

[tineng]

personally for me...it didn't work....soak in fresh water for a week, sun for a month, then cycle in dark places (under my office desk...) for nearly 1/2 year......when put in new tank still got tons of algae coming out....

The only step i miss out was to use DI water to mix the salt but instead i use NSW for the cycling.....so i guess if thats the case, then your friend will really need dedication in cooking the rocks as it quite a hassle to mix salthwater with DI water and you will require about twice the volume of saltwater a week to 'clean' the rocks.....finally 3 weeks might not be enough....

oh yeah....#$%#$% hariy crab still appears despite carefully inspection of my corals......guess if you want to go all the way, you will also need to setup QT tank for corals and bait them with food for about 2 weeks before putting them to the tank....

[Kelmen]

Hmmm... I though they really put in freshwater, hence they named it "cook" as more extreme-feel

Well, from what I can recall why they wanna do these, usually is the rock got bad things seeded, like nuisance algae always revive. Somehow they still wanna keep the rock, may some special hole they wanna retain

You know, its hard to get the "right" shape and holes you want in a rock, unless you "make" them.

Probably good to kill like those hydroid, whatever bad things lurk in the hole one cannot see and reach.

[Reefbum]

Bad practise and waste of money.Anyway he got the the method of 'cooking' all wrong.