Gold mine of free rock! (and my efforts to nuke it)

Friend of a friends parent had a 200Gal FOWLR tank that crashed ~4 months ago. All his fish, inverts, everything died with exception to an eel and a huge crab (its shell measures 4inches in diameter). He decided to tear the tank down. Took his eel to our saltwater LFS and he then offerred me any pieces of rock I want! Theres atleast 150lbs in there and so far I have picked up three 5gal buckets worth. I have it all sitting in a rubbermaid container at the moment. I took ~35lbs of rock to start with and as I dont necessarily need this rock its free so I cant just watch him throw it in the garbage as he has no future use for it.

The rocks so full of nasty algae that I am going to nuke it. I added in RO water to the top of the rubbermaid (covering all the rock) and added in bleach. I threw a crappy powerhead in there to move the water around. (and if math serves me right i made a perfect 50:50 bleach:water solution)

Going to wait 3-4 days, change the water out with a baking soda + water mix solution, scrub the rock, and let it sit for 3-4 more days in a baking soda solution.

Wait 3-4 more days and drain the rubbermaid and then add in straight water for 3-4 more days. Then let the rock dry out for a week. Soak again in regular water, and wait again for it to dry.

Hopefully by that time the rock should be back to a natural color and all algae/life should be dead and the bleach should be gone.

Im not sure what killed his fish so I dont want to introduce any disease. If anyone has any comments on my nuking of the rock I would appreciate it. Ive never had to do this before. To date I have just bought new rock when setting up an aquarium.

The rock is all from indo-pacific & lots of tonga rock. Im going back over there later this week when weather permits to get more rock.

So excited about all this tonga branch! I had been searching for this stuff for awhile. I only had one piece from a LFS and its probably the coolest piece of rock I have in my tank at the moment. I have enough now that I could easily do a whole aquascape in just Tonga branches.

 

Sounds awesome, nice pick up and you process should be good.

 

50/50 bleach water sounds really strong, unless this is for a specific reason, I'd think 5% would suffice. Good luck and congrats on the nice score.

 

Thats totally a good score. I wish I had that score as I am looking to star up my tank but still working on getting my wife onboard with it. I think she will brake soon Ha. I have done a lot of research on this topic and am very handy. I am going to build my own sump. Anyways I dont think it matters if it is 5% or 50/50 as long as the rock is clean in the end and the bleach is gone. I would leave it to grow in saltwater after all this to see if the rock is OK in the end so you might need at little light and some air in the rubber made. I would just do this to make sure is all.

 

I agree great score, but you have to post pictures as soon as your done bleaching it.

 

moved it from the rubbermaid to a 10gal tank i had sitting on a shelf with a powerhead in it. changed the water out on it, scrubbed them a bit, and now ill leave it like this for a couple days. wanted to see how much volume in rock i had. weight never really gives me a good indicator until i actually stack it up. i couldnt really see it in the rubbermaid (black) so i couldnt get a visual idea of how much rock i got so far.

heres a pic as it is right now:

 

19 pieces of rock in total at this time crammed into that 10gal.

 

you cant find tonga cause they cant import it right now, great score though I have some tonga shelf and I bought it as soon as I read that they were shutting down export on it for 3 years