live rock curing: bubble algea and apatasia

[saltyESQ]

thanks to a fellow reefer on the boards, I got 10-15lbs of free live rock. thank you

but my question is that he/she left the rock out of the water for about 5 days. the rocks are really stinky and are covered in dead material. (I was 2 secs from hacking)

I was told that the LR had some apatasia and I saw some bubble algea.

will the curing process kill both the bubble algea and the apatasia?

[NicoleC]

I doubt it. Algae spores will definately survive and aiptasia seems to survive anything.

[Wickednix]

cook the rock man cook it.

[saltyDDS]

I agree with Nicole. Curing the rock will just revive the bubble algae and aptasia. You'll either have to completely dry the rock under the sun for at least a couple of weeks or as Robert suggested, cook it in boiling water. A thorough freshwater rinsing is a must after either process.

[firerock]

Well, after the cooking and/or sun bath, the rocks are gonna be without much "live" left. It'll take sometime before it becomes "live" again.

You might want to try freshwater dip first, and scrub/rinse it with freshwater as clean as possible. You might not be able to get rid of all of them, but if you can get it under control, then just spot treat it from there.

In either way, its gonna be a lengthy/stinky process. Good luck.

[phatphisher]

shouldn't take too long to make live again if you already have established liverock in the system to seed the dead rock.