Will power wash my rocks after work.

[inachu]

Any tips?

[r0bin]

This question is unclear.

[inachu]

Originally posted by r0bin
This question is unclear.

Sorry about that.

Power wash as in taking the rocks to the DIY car wash with the high pressure hose.

[Playa-1]

Why are you going to do that?

[VacavilleFC3S]

no don't do it, your just gonna blast all the coralline off and pulverize the rock,

[Rysam]

i wouldnt use the carwash to clean anything but a car. there's some nasty stuff in that water. it more than likely re-uses water after a half assed filtering. thats how my local wash is. find a buddy or rent a clean pressure washer.

[inachu]

Originally posted by VacavilleFC3S
no don't do it, your just gonna blast all the coralline off and pulverize the rock,

Most of the rock I have does not have coraline on it.
But yeah if I did then I would not do it.

I just did a major tank cleaning on my tank and the rocks are the last part that sill have lots of algae on it or dead algae and I just spent money on new filter stuff and I do not want to have the filter filter it out as I want it to last a while longer perhaps until next friday. Would be senseless to clean the rocks in a tank with new filtration in place..... waste of money.

then when back home I'll shake them in some old water that has stuff already settle to the bottom.
No big deal...

[Toddrtrex]

What are you using for bacterial filtration ?

[inachu]

Originally posted by Toddrtrex
What are you using for bacterial filtration ?

Fluval 305
standard sponges
bag of fluval phosphate remover
bag of Carbon
then some of these:

http://www.gardensite.co.uk/upload/m...ters/a1470.jpg

And then some buffer pads I chang eout twice a week.

running my skimmer 24/7

And as of yesterday I am running carbon in my phosban reactor.

http://www.aznphotos.com/view.html?f=clean002ungp.jpg

[otrlynn]

I'm totally confused here. Is the rock you are trying to clean "live"? Has it been kept in saltwater while you were cleaning your tank? If you have been keeping it in saltwater, there is lots of good bacteria that you want to preserve. If you wash it in fresh water of any kind, you will kill all of that beneficial bacteria. If you have been keeping it submerged in saltwater with some circulation you can swish or even scrub the outside with saltwater while preserving the beneficial bacteria. If it has been sitting out of water and is already "dead" you can wash it with fresh water but definitely not at the carwash. They recycle water and it will most likely have crud and detergent in it.

[Michael]

Originally posted by otrlynn
I'm totally confused here. Is the rock you are trying to clean "live"? Has it been kept in saltwater while you were cleaning your tank? If you have been keeping it in saltwater, there is lots of good bacteria that you want to preserve. If you wash it in fresh water of any kind, you will kill all of that beneficial bacteria. If you have been keeping it submerged in saltwater with some circulation you can swish or even scrub the outside with saltwater while preserving the beneficial bacteria. If it has been sitting out of water and is already "dead" you can wash it with fresh water but definitely not at the carwash. They recycle water and it will most likely have crud and detergent in it.

your confused?? join the club

[inachu]

I will ask the local DIY carwash if they do reuse the water before I do this then.

So far all my scrubbing spending 2 to 5 minutes on each rock beneits nothing.

[Toddrtrex]

This just seems like a really bad idea to me. You are going to kill most ( if not all ) of the beneficial bacteria that is within the live rock -- plus anything else on it. So you are going to end up with dead base rock. See your tank going through another cycle when you add it back to it.

[inachu]

Yeha if everyone thinks its that bad then I'll just keep scrubbing it but the stuff thats on it never comes off.

Im using a hair brush right now on it.

I might go buy one of those steel brushes.

Nothing on the rocks worth saving except for maybe the good bacteria.

[Toddrtrex]

Make sure you scrub them in a bucket of salt water.

But, the important thing is to figure out why the rocks got covered in nuisance algae in the first place -- if you don't fix that it will just come back in time.

[Michael]

a steel brush will just reduce the rock to rubble, bad idea, why are you having a major clean out of the tank after 8 months?

[inachu]

Originally posted by Michael
a steel brush will just reduce the rock to rubble, bad idea, why are you having a major clean out of the tank after 8 months?

Sorry I wish I took a picture before I did that major clean up.

tank was uuuugly!

[inachu]

Before I cleaned it my tank looked more like I was breedng algae on purpose.


Jus trying to be really militant against any and all algae now.

When the snails eat the red algae they die like 3 days later.

[Toddrtrex]

Snails shouldn't be dying from eating algae, something else is going on with your tank.

What size is it? And what are your current water parameters?

[Michael]

h--mmm i think your problem with the rock is due to your set up, your living rock and vigarous water movement is all you need as the main biological filter, id strip that canister out except for a bag of carbon and because of your bioload do regular water changes as nitrates from the fish poo and wee is your problem, im dont know what size tank you have as its not listed in your signature but the size of it and your type of lights and time of the lights running would help, i think you are overlaoded and perhaps you may not have enough rock, im interested to know more about your set up, perhaps we could avoid you having to go through this again in another 8 months if you sort out the problem now

[inachu]

Originally posted by Toddrtrex
Snails shouldn't be dying from eating algae, something else is going on with your tank.

What size is it? And what are your current water parameters?

The local LFS used the word "PERFECT" except my calcium was at 300. He said amonia was zero as was nitrate and nitrite.

Sometimes I do feed the fish twice a day. I have now started back to just once a day.

[Toddrtrex]

What about your phosphate levels? And if the water was perfect, wouldn't be having these issues.

[inachu]

I do have a $145 super pro water tester kit I have not used yet.
I'll break it out and post the results in this thread but I am going for a swim first before I do that.

[Michael]

i think 15 fish in a 55 gallon is too much personally, however others may disagree, i think you have serious parameter problems due to the fish waste and you have not got the set up to deal with it, hence the build up of nastys which is why the tank looked like a algae jungle, hopefully things will get better for you, also i wouldnt listen to your lfs, its very unlikely things are perfect if you are considering going down to the carwash to clean the rock, sorry if i sound like im giving you a hard time but i would love it if things worked out for you, i just think you need to consider your overal set up inachu, hope you have a nice swim

[inachu]

Originally posted by Michael
i think 15 fish in a 55 gallon is too much personally, however others may disagree, i think you have serious parameter problems due to the fish waste and you have not got the set up to deal with it, hence the build up of nastys which is why the tank looked like a algae jungle, hopefully things will get better for you, also i wouldnt listen to your lfs, its very unlikely things are perfect if you are considering going down to the carwash to clean the rock, sorry if i sound like im giving you a hard time but i would love it if things worked out for you, i just think you need to consider your overal set up inachu, hope you have a nice swim

This is the only rock I will not touch since it seems to be doing ok.


http://picasaweb.google.com/inachu/M...84996828055122