# Texas holey rock bleaching...



## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

My brother just gave me all his texas holey rock and I need to bleach it. It has algae on it that has been on there for years. It really has a good hold on the rock. I was reading that 1 part bleach to 10 part water should do it. I am worried that it may need to be a stronger dose.

Do you guys that have done this with success recommend I use more bleach to water? Hold long should I let it soak? 3-4 days?


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## Woodworm (Jan 3, 2009)

A 10% solution should work just fine. I recommend at least 2 days worth of soaking and adding more bleach each day you have it soaking to make up for the gas off. You may still need to do some scrubbing afterwords but it should come off easily after the soak. I do this with the holey rock that I collect from the "wild" and trust me it has a lot more then just some algae on it.


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## vann59 (Jun 20, 2011)

Dude! Why are you bleaching the rock? You know it's gonna grow back anyway. Remember what DJ said, choose interesting shapes, not colors, because the color of the rock is going to change.


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

Well...I am impatient so I went ahead and grabbed a huge pot and put a bunch of bleach in it and filled the rest with water and boiled them....all algae is gone. Almost no scrubbing at all. I went ahead and rinsed and are letting them soak for 24s in cold water with a bunch of seachem safe. I will them drain the water and rinse again and smell to see if the bleach smell is gone...if so then I am adding them tomorrow.

Hey Vann...I really wanted to disinfect the rocks anyways after they came out of my brothers tank. He is not as anal as most of us are in terms of keeping things clean and fish healthy.


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## vann59 (Jun 20, 2011)

Ok, I can understand getting rid of cooties. But you're not gonna stress over the algae when it grows back right?

It's only natural :thumb:

(I definitely prefer nice green algae to the brown diatoms though.)


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

vann59 said:


> Ok, I can understand getting rid of cooties. But you're not gonna stress over the algae when it grows back right?
> 
> It's only natural :thumb:
> 
> (I definitely prefer nice green algae to the brown diatoms though.)


No....I will not stress...I am growing nice green algae on my current rocks and like it. My line of thinking is getting rid of cooties and having nice white rocks for a little bit then them turning off green. The algae that was on there has been there for so long it was black in some areas dark and light green as well. Just looked weird.


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

Ok....they are drying out now and looking pretty good. I think this formation looks ok in my 4' tank....any thoughts:


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## JAyliffe (Feb 29, 2012)

I think they look great! Can't wait to see your fish enjoying them


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

JAyliffe said:


> I think they look great! Can't wait to see your fish enjoying them


Yeah...just got to get the black sand...going to let them bask in the sun for another day or two. Going to make a makeshift outline of my tank on my coffee table with exact measurements so I can figure out what will look best before I remove the fish and rearrange everything.


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## Mike_G (Nov 8, 2011)

13razorbackfan said:


> Going to make a makeshift outline of my tank on my coffee table with exact measurements so I can figure out what will look best before I remove the fish and rearrange everything.


I'm using a piece of eggcrate cut to size as a template.


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

Mike_G said:


> 13razorbackfan said:
> 
> 
> > Going to make a makeshift outline of my tank on my coffee table with exact measurements so I can figure out what will look best before I remove the fish and rearrange everything.
> ...


Yeah....I just laid out a big board and used masking tape....have it all set to redo the tank sometime this afternoon.


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