Dipping Live Rock into Lemon Juice?

Hi all,

I am buying a 28gal. Nano Cube this morning that has been very neglected and is infested with Aiptasia, for days I have read on ways to kill the aiptasia and decided my best route to take was Bleach. We choose to decontaminate the entire tank, equipment, etc, and soak the rocks in Bleach. We know everything will die, and we are fine with that however even with Bleach it sounds like a lengthy process, requiring several weeks.

My brilliant idea was to soak the rocks in Lemon Juice killing the aiptasia instantly, using a spray bottle to spray the entire tank with lemon juice and then soaking the equipment in the juice as well..then for 24 hours running bleach through the entire system, filters, etc. I was wondering if I am crazy or is this the fastest way to get rid of aiptasia? More impotantly, why has no one thought of this before? I have never read of anyone doing this and assume there is a reason, is this a fast, safe route to killing aiptasia?

P.s.
Any tips on saving the live rocks is obviously a bonus, but please be gentle as we are fairly new to this hobby.

 

Why would bleaching take weeks? You can do it in a few days. The rock will probably no longer be live after being soaked in lemon juice anyhow (the lemon juice method involves injecting the aiptaisa, anyhow, which you would not be doing), and if you run bleach through the entire system you have the same effects anyhow. Just bleach, let it dry, and then rinse and you're good to go.

 

Thanks for the quick response, I have heard that running bleach through the system for 24 hours would be good, and you say several days..exactly how long should I bleach to make sure they are all dead? Doing a lemon juice spray down before the bleaching would help speed the process up a bit?

 

The bleach will kill anything, no lemon juice needed. I bleach rocks in a tub (rubbermaid). You don't need to bleach your tank, just give it a good scrub down since it's a smaller tank. I let the rocks soak in bleach for 2 days usually, then rinse thoroughly, then let them dry in the sun for a couple days. Then rinse again.

 

Thanks a ton for this information, this is the route we are going to take. I am curious as to why it takes 48 hours though and several days to dry the rock? Forgive my newbie questions, but the last thing I want to do is do the bleaching and not wait long enough to find after setting it all back up the aiptasia still lives.

Will a blow dryer help in drying he rock?
Again, my apologies for being seemingly rushed ..I just want to do this with the least and minimal time involved. ( I work insane hours and hoping to do this over the weekend. )

 

I would not run bleach through the entire system.....it will leech into the silicone.
This is not going to be a quick process, and you can not rush anything in with saltwater
I would take everything out from the tank and wash it really really good. This includes the bioballs, the pump, etc. You can use a very small bleach solution to scrub down the stuff but you have to rinse it off very very well. Then allow everything to dry for a bit. I would personally not use bleach for the tank, but I have done it before.

The rock needs to soak in bleach water for a day or two. You then need to make sure those are rinsed off very well. It then needs to dry out, and no you should not rush this part. Let it dry for a couple days.

when you start the tank you will need to get something to reseed the tank as your rock is dead. This means you need to get some new pieces of LR and add to it, or you can get some sand from a trusted tank to seed in. This process is going to take several weeks to cycle through.

good luck

 

Where you live would be good to know too, I live in southeast PA, i used super hot water, used a rubbermaid, rinsed the rock really well with hot water, did this a few times to get a lot of the junk off, then i used hott water and bleach, do as stated above, let it sit two days, this will be a two weekend job. During the week mb wed or something, rinse it really well for about an hour let the garden hose run through the rubbermaid, then if you live in a place like me its been in the 80s all week so i left the rock to dry on my deck in the sun....it looks great now

 

+1, what I was going to say.

If you plan to do this correctly the tank won't be back up in a weekend.

 

Thanks everyone for all the helpful information, I guess I am just curious as to why it takes bleach 48 hours to kill aiptasia off live rock. I've read so many articles and some say several days and some say bleach kills immediately but I trust this website and would rather know from you all..

I do plan to wait and do this slowly now but why does it take 48 hours to kill aiptasia with bleach? I had planned to use a declorinator to remove any excess chlorine etc.

Also to answer your questions, I live in Columbus, Ohio. Been very rainy and mostly humid and cool. We have a main 55gal. tank that we plan to use rock from to re-seed it. Our main concern is killing all of the aiptasia. Like I said this nano we are buying in (looks at clock) 24mins is literally infested, he has neglected it and it has red, green, and black algae. Nothing is alive in it anymore including all the coral. I am just looking to decontaminate it as fast as possible.

 

I actually killed my aiptaisa with vinigar and hot water... worked great for me but bleaching is definitely a good option....
Good luck with setting up your tank!