Live/Dead rock

[kimber]

Where do I begin with live rock & sand tank that was left to dry out completely

[SpriTzin]

You will need some new live rock, just a few pieces to re-sead the dead rock. either clean extreamly througouly the sand, or use new if possable. try to get a cup of live sand from another established tank to seed your sand with. i'd clean the rock as well, make sure no dead matter is left on it to polute the new water.

[Mike O'Brien]

When you let rock and sand dry out, everything is left inside and on the surface and needs to be cleaned off before using it again to avoid adding all those nutrients back to the tank. There are a few methods that work really well to clean the rock. One is called cooking the rock, and it does not involve heat. Basically it's an extended cure in the dark. You perform lots of water changes to keep the water clean and every few days take the rock out and swish it around in a bucket to remove the detritus that will be building up in the rock as bacteria clean it. This is effective, but takes a long time and is labor intensive.

Another method is to soak the rock in an acid solution to remove the surface layer. Point here being that Phosphate absorbs onto the surfaces of the rock relative to the concentration in the water the rock was previously in. If there was high P in that tank, they will be a lot of it stuck to the rock. Removing the surface effectively removes most of the Phosphate that was stuck to the rock.

As far as sand, I just recommend replacing it. But if you cant, just put it in a big bucket and rinse it until it's clean. The more clean water you can run through it, the better. The same process with Phosphate happens with sand and everything made of Calcium Carbonate.