Prepping lava rock

[petro101]

I bought a bunch of black lava rock from a rock yard and was prepping it for a revamp on my aquarium setup. These pieces I bought are more of a soft edged moss rock form rather than what is called bowl lava rock (which is red and has sharper edges). I rinsed the rock with water hose to get loose / residue off and soaked them in a 18gal tote with a bunch of regular Clorox bleach for 2 hours. I rinsed the rocks and the tote and put them back in for overnight soaking in 5X dose of prime. Next day rinsed again and soaked in new water with 5x prime. Next day added a bunch of tank water to the tote during water change and just going to let it continue to soak overnight, this should be enough to treat the porous lava rock?

[mikevxr]

Must admit I leave treated rock for a week , changing water daily -I don't add any more Prime after day 3. With it being porous think I personally would let it soak longer changing water daily.

[petro101]

Thanks for the feedback. I've been letting it soak still so its almost been a week. I let it soak for 2 days with the prime and just did a 5X prime again in new water, i've used a lot of prime. I'll stop using it after i put new water in today for another overnight soaking. Trying to be very cautious since i don't use carbon in my filters.

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

It would be optimal to boil them... I used a bunch of anti erosion lime stone and washed them with dawn dish soap and rinsed in hot water before too.

Obviously this isn't something that you can do with those though. They shouldn't have any chemicals on them other than the bleach now but that should dissipate after a couple of days max.

[petro101]

yeah boiling them would have been a lot easier. My bigger pieces would have to be boiled in sections unless i got a bigger pot. All this work to treat the rock for .15 cents a lb is worth it. 80lbs of lava rock for 12 bucks cant beat it. LFS would charge $1.25 to $1.50 a lb.

[mikevxr]

I would expect it to be fine after a week. There should be no smell of bleach now - if that's the case then you should be fine.