Any experience cooking LR?

[MJAnderson]

I've got about 40lbs of base rock and I'm going to pull about 20lbs of rock out of my tank (looking too cluttered). Was going to throw this in a bin to see if I can cook it up for use in my sump and/or frag system. Do I need to run a skimmer on it or will WC be enough to keep it from really getting gunky?

Also, does anyone know if plating corraline is different from the regular stuff? I have some on the rock I'm getting rid of. It's reddish. Will any corraline plate after a certain period of time or should I try and scrape it off and reseed my other rock with it?

[GSMguy]

most if not all coraline will die, so scrape while you can.

need to do 100% water changes and use a skimmer, 6-12 months in the dark ( no light is important).

also in the container you need good deal of flow.

Nick

[EYESEEU]

there's diffent colors and types of coraline plating scrolling branching to name a few

[Big E]

I've cooked rock & didn't use a skimmer.......just a big Rio pump for circulation. Do water changes & dunk the rock in the old water to get rid of detritus caught up in the rocks.

The more often you do water changes the quicker you can rid the rock of unwanted phosphates.

I have coraline on rock that has been in the dark for over 2 years.

[MJAnderson]

Originally posted by Big E
I've cooked rock & didn't use a skimmer.......just a big Rio pump for circulation. Do water changes & dunk the rock in the old water to get rid of detritus caught up in the rocks.

The more often you do water changes the quicker you can rid the rock of unwanted phosphates.

I have coraline on rock that has been in the dark for over 2 years.

I'm assuming a heater as well? 2 years! I was hoping it would be available in 6 months. Guess I should get on the ball and get it cooking...

[scottfarcuz]

I don't think Ed meant it would take 2 years. Just that he had some in the dark that long. I tend to take advice from guys like him, or atleast understand his views. I know he can grow some monster SPS.

I asked about your rock before because I wanted to play around with some dosing to see if "cooking" could be accelerated. With so many people dosing various carbon sources, and running extreme amounts of GFO it seems to me this could be sped to some degree?

From all the info Ive read most don't skim. It surely wouldn't hurt, but if you are changing the water like they claim you should it's probably a lot of expense for little added benefit.

[scottfarcuz]

One other thing I always thought would be helpful to the cooking process is taking a decent submersible pump and putting a penductor like fitting on the output. Use this jet style stream to blast the crud off of, and more importantly out of the rocks between each water change.

You could even set it up in a smaller glass tank with a hose on the output of the pump and a nozzle on the end of the hose. Would be almost like using a sand blasting cabinet.

Again Ive never cooked any rock, but have seen how much rock can shed in a BB setup. Just offering up some of my random thoughts on the subject.

[Big E]

Yeah, it's just rock I still have in the tub....... it doesn't take that long to cook the rock.

I didn't use a heater because the pump itself kept the water at 75. With the tub covered completely the heat is held in.