Few questions..

Hey guys. This is one dauntinga$$ project Ive outlined for myself here and given the amount of as I time Ill have to work on it, it may be some time til its all up and running. As I go im sure many questions will arise so im grateful to have a forum like this full of cool folks eager to help.

As of today I have the following issues..

Im cooking the 200 lbs of LR cuz it was in bad shape, quite a bit of hair algae and im sure it was just loaded with phosphate. Basically ive had the rock sitting in a large tup, submerged with some powerheads moving water around. Its been in there a week today. I was wondering if I could use natural sea water from the LI Sound here to do the remainder of the cooking. The water here isnt the cleanest and im sure lacks many of the necissary trace elements to sustain a reef, but then does that really matter? I was also wondering what kind of life can I expect to keep alive in the rock. I know Coralline algae will fade and come back but what about the pods and anything else, will it survive this process or is it designed to kill almost everything.

Also Ive had some lonnng bristle worm sightings. Both in the rock and now I guess one crawled out the the rock while it was stuck in my fuge and now its taken up residence in a some piece ive had. What do these things pose a threat to, just corals? Will the curing/cooking process kill these things? That doesnt really matter i suppose cuz I can just grab them out with some tweezers.

Im having trouble with the downdraft skimmer I got with the 240. I just got down recementing the collection cup flange to the riser component that had broken off prior to me getting the tank. Eager to get the organics sucked out of my reef (deposited by this garbage rock I had in there for a few days) I mounted the collection/riser tube piece, screwed it down and turned on the pump. STILL LEAKS. Its the gasket this time. The holes that were made I guess by a hole puncher, somehow got elongated and pryed up, cracked all that stuff. Anyone know where I can get some good gasket material? Need to get this skimmer up and running asap.

thats it for now, need to get my butt to work. thanks in advance guys

 

I've never cooked rock and I don't have a skimmer so the only thing I can help you with is the bristle worms. They are good additions to your tank. They help clean up all of the dead and decaying matter. They sometimes get a bad rep because people see them eating their fish or coral when in fact all they are doing is cleaning up after the fish or coral has died. Best of luck with your other problems.

 

bristleworms are good as long as they are not the fire worm type.

As for cooking live rock. Putting them in a bucket of saltwater with a powerhead is not going to remove much algae like you think. It will start to fade because of lack of light, but will not rid. Most cook dry rock not wet cured rock that has algae on it. If it is that bad, sacrifice the rock and bio life and bleach them. It will get rid of any life or deposited organics in the rock. Very simple common practice among reefers that will give you a nice clean white rock.