# cleaning rocks???????????



## coonie (May 23, 2011)

how do i get the algea off my rocks? i took them out put them in really hot water....scrubbed the **** out of them n they are still greenish.....any suggestions?????????


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## DanniGirl (Jan 25, 2007)

Soak them in a bleach solution then let them air dry.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

I soak mine occasionally in a rubbermaid container in bleach/water mix for an hour or two.
Scrub, drain and refill with water and double dose of dechlorinator, let sit for an hour, drain and back into the tank. Normally I'll add one dose of dechlor in the tank for good measure.


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## coonie (May 23, 2011)

i don't have any of that stuff....i've never used and chems in my tank....i've heard of bleach but i am in the middle of major cleaning of tank and restocking a 90g with peacocks n haps.....so i really do not wanna chance anything right now....i litterally boiled water n soaked them in that....didn't work 100%. not even 50%


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## Agridion (Sep 8, 2010)

Soak them in a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide ( say 4-5 parts water 1 part peroxide) for 1/2 an hour or so, rinse off and then you can put them back into the tank. The algae will slowly die and fall off. The rocks and algae should bubble when in the mixture. This method you won't have to worry about the bleach.


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

Agridion said:


> Soak them in a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide ( say 4-5 parts water 1 part peroxide) for 1/2 an hour or so, rinse off and then you can put them back into the tank. The algae will slowly die and fall off. The rocks and algae should bubble when in the mixture. This method you won't have to worry about the bleach.


True, hydrogen peroxide has no chlorine. It could loosely be called an oxygen bleach. You can even use it full strength since it breaks down into water and oxygen. But then it might spatter on your clothes. Avoid the 3% drugstore version that may contain chemical stabilizers and perfumes. The 6% stuff from a beauty supply store can be obtained that does not have the additives.

You can even regularly dose the 6% peroxide to the tank with live fish and plants in it. It will saturate the water with oxygen and oxidize fish wastes and algae films. I've used 24 or 30% peroxide with an automated doser while working with challenging fish and I think it was the extra step that helped them spawn.


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## Agridion (Sep 8, 2010)

How much can you directly dose to the tank?


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

Agridion said:


> How much can you directly dose to the tank?


Put 5 ml of 6% H2 O2 in a 2 liter pop bottle fora 75 gallon tank. Top off with RO or your favorite tap water. Set it above the tank. Add a length of airline tubing as a siphon with a valve inline. Adjust the valve so that you get a countable steady drip into the tank. Use your judgement when to repeat since the amount of organics in a tank that the hydrogen peroxide reacts with can vary widely. During a power outage, this is a way to prevent the anaerobic crashing of an aquarium. It can be dripped into an outside power filter that has been unplugged during the outage so that it then drips into the tank.

I normally use the automatic dosers that use a trace of platinum on a clay pellet to regulate the amount released. You count the number of platinum pellets in the doser to match the size of the tank. They are no longer made in the USA (big surprise - what do we make besides burgers and insurance paperwork?) and I have my old ones but I do know they are still made in Germany and popular in Germany and UK. These don't directly dose the tank, Instead the platinum converts some of the H2O2 into water and oxygen at a set rate. This pushes out a small bit of H2O2 into a separate reaction chamber which along with the saturated oxygen slowly seeps, diluted and after reacting with organics dissolved in the water (if I have part that right) into the aquarium proper. When the H2O2 is used up, the doser is full of oxygen gas and floats to the surface to be refilled.

http://www.zooplus.de/shop/aquaristik/a ... ting/11378

USA supplier:
http://www.aquariumoxygenator.com/

For direct dosing, some of these sites below may have information. I use it directly to clean aquarium equipment, old gravel that I've at least given a rinse to, and whole aquariums that any plants and fish I want to keep are first removed. If I use it to clean an entire tank I lower the water level as much as I can without interrupting the filter circulation, then add a "whole bunch" of hydrogen peroxide. If the tank is not foaming over too badly onto the floor, I add more. This will kill Malaysian burrowing snails. You can soak those guys in straight bleach and a couple hours later they are cruising around in the depleted bleach water. My guess is they don't smell the hydrogen peroxide and don't close up like they do for bleach. I had my fish room completely free of MBS this way. Although then I recently introduced some new jumbo size variety of them that I needed to feed to loaches, cichlids, and assassin snails.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2004/1/mini

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/hyd ... oxide.html

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f2 ... 30482.html

http://www.koi.com.my/forum/KOI_Talk_C1 ... _P113572-5

http://www.purehealthdiscounts.com/h2o2.htm

Then there's this link about dosing with H2O2, vodka, and sugar. Wild and wooly are the printable adjectives that come to my mind.

http://www.livingreefs.com/hydrogen-per ... 22496.html


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## skurj (Oct 30, 2011)

coonie said:


> i don't have any of that stuff....i've never used and chems in my tank....i've heard of bleach but i am in the middle of major cleaning of tank and restocking a 90g with peacocks n haps.....so i really do not wanna chance anything right now....i litterally boiled water n soaked them in that....didn't work 100%. not even 50%


You might want to use dechlorinator next time you do a water change.


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## johnscarbrough (Jan 11, 2012)

DanniGirl said:


> Soak them in a bleach solution then let them air dry.


Really this gonna work??


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

johnscarbrough said:


> DanniGirl said:
> 
> 
> > Soak them in a bleach solution then let them air dry.
> ...


Air drying bleach does not work. Beach is a solid dissolved in water. When rewetted, it will still be inside the rock where it penetrated. OTOH, glassy rock like obsidian would be OK with this.


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## Shahlvah (Dec 28, 2011)

Do you have a steamer ?....like the ones you use to do your cleaning in your shower or kitchen? steam your rocks, the steam is chemical free, and it kills every bacteria or germ or algae in your plants (plastic or rocks or decoration) then put our rocks in the sun and let the sun "bleach" them for a couple of days.


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