Cleaning river rocks

**Lindsey** · 04-19-2010, 04:42 PM

I was thinking about going to a nearby creek and taking some large rounded rocks to landscape my tank with, since it'll look empty once I have anubias in there but no other decor.

How can I best clean these to avoid introducing any pathogens into my tank?

**Bristley** · 04-19-2010, 04:48 PM

Not too sure how the rocks themselves would affect the water chemistry in your tank, so I don't know if would have an affect on water KH or pH. Someone else might know if that would be an issue. As far as cleaning to make sure you don't transfer and harmful parasites or bacteria, I personnally would put them in a large pot and boil them. That would kill any micro-organisms (sp?) and should help with leaching out any chemicals that may be absorbed into the rocks.

Hopefully someone else with more experience/expertise in this matter will chime in shortly to give you more specific advice, but I hope this at least helps a little.

**rich311k** · 04-19-2010, 04:50 PM

A good scrubbing should be all they need.

Drip some vinegar on them, if they do not fizzle they are inert and safe to use.

Be sure it is legal to collect them before you do so.

**Wild Turkey** · 04-19-2010, 05:04 PM

Theres a few things,

I would start with a good scrub, you can even dip them in rubbing alcohol, I would not use bleach though.

The vinegar test is a must

If its something you arent sure about, it might be wise to put it in a bucket for a few weeks and do daily waterchanges on the bucket. You can also let them sit in there and then test the ph that way.

DO NOT BOIL ROCKS
they can explode.

**Bristley** · 04-19-2010, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by Wild Turkey

DO NOT BOIL ROCKS
they can explode.

Interesting and extremely good to know. Never done that so I didn't know that was a possibility. I just knew that boiling was good for sterilizing things. Thank you for putting that information out or I probably would have found that out the hard way.

**WhiteDevil** · 04-19-2010, 05:31 PM

you can take boiling water and pour it over the rocks into a bucket and eliminate the grenade effect(rare but does happen)

also vinegar is a very weak testing product to use, I have found that PH DOWN does a much better job, its fizzed rocks that vinegar didnt.

**terrapin24h** · 04-19-2010, 06:00 PM

I should think soaking them in a dilute bleach soution, and scrubbing them would work too, followed by a good rinsing, and maybe even a soak.

++on not boiling them--bad stuff

--chris