live rock contamination, leeching

I've had ongoing conversations about this topic, but I'm curious about live rock leaching contaminates into our reef tanks. Here are some examples.

1. You buy live rock off the internet and you cure it.... how do you know that they didn't pull this rock out of some polluted beach somewhere (and since I'm in Texas) next to an oil rig? How long would it take to get the oil/contaminates out of the rock before it's safe for your aquarium?

2. You're on a family vacation to Floriday, you get up early and find rock that is just totally covered with coraline algae on it.... you think it's cool, so to your wife's disastifaction, you leave out the souveniors to pack it in your suitcase. How long do you have to cure it before it's safe to add to your tank?

3. You get some rock off of a guy who has used tap water for his tank, it's completely covered with hair algae? how long before you can add it to your tank (of course after the hair algae is gone, but how long after that?)

4. You buy rock from a pet shop and then you find out they dose with copper in their tank. How long before the copper has leached out and it's safe to add to your tank?


I know Otty..... NUKE THE ROCK in all cases.

But otherwise, how long will the rocks leach into your system? If it is months or a year, how can we buy live rock and put it into our tanks? We don't know where this stuff comes from when we buy it from Ebay or the net? Supposedly, they aren't taking the rock off the reefs, so if it is only the crap that gets washed up or is in the bays, how do we know it's safe and it won't screw with our tanks for 6 months to a year?

So, Here's the question: How long does it take for the following to truly leach out of the rocks?

Dead animals?

Copper?

Silicates?

Phosphate?

Nitrate?

Iron?

And what other items should we watch for?

 

Sorry, I forgot to use spell check.

 

So, how long will live rock leech out chemicals? Does anybody know?

 

That depends on the type and amount of "chemicals" that the rock is holding. Could be a few months, a few years or always.

I don't use live rock for these reasons. That and the potential for pests, including algae spores.

 

It is too difficult to pinpoint! Their is no concrete time table for such leeching attributes to cease.
Unfortunately, it is a gamble that we all must take...Everytime we make a purchase, we run the risk of introducing pests and unwantd hitchhikers into our tanks. We can only hope to try and decrease these occurrences from unfolding by taking precautionary measures!

 

would you guys recomend nuking each piece of live rock before putting in tank? if so, for how long?
currently have 80lbs of recently purchased live rock, curing at lfs. can i add 10lbs or so a week of uncured, and let it cure in tank? will it kill off my fish?

 

Don't know about others, but Cu can leach out over eons...

I know.


:-/

 

Never add uncured liverock to an established tank. If the tank is already established and all parameters are set, I would only add base rock or nuked rock from that point on.

If it is a new tank and it is not established yet, All all the live rock at one time (after curing.)

Just my opinion.

 

If copper leeches for eons, will bleach and baking soda remove it?

 

Basically it's a crap shoot. You don't know, can't know- doesn't matter if it's live rock, base rock, sand, water, fish, etc. Any addition has potential for disaster, now or later.

We may just as well worry about the PVC we use leaching into the water- when I lived over on the edge of Berkeley/Oakland I had to use PVC ONLY on one side of the property due to copper leaching concerns, and copper ONLY plumbing on the other side due to PVC concerns!


It's not a safe world, I suppose it all depends on what you choose to think about.