Live Rock

[dstoneburg]

So I found a guy on craigslist selling an old tank. It had about 100 pounds of LR a maited pair of clowns and thats it. It was up and running, but very neglected. I have no idea how these clowns survived, talk about hardy. When I got there you could not see inside the tank! It was OVERGROWN( and thats understating it) with algae, they had not done any cleaning,main., water changes in over a year! So I get the clowns into my QT and they seem to be doing fine. My question is on the LR. It seems to be stained with green algae. I decited to "cure" it even though it already prolly is. I scrubbed it, and put it into a container and am going to let it sit for a week. My question is, is there going to be any ill-effects im going to see from adding this rock to my tank after I "cure" it.
Its stained green and I am worried it may overtake my tank, even though I cleaned all the algae I could get off.
Are there going to be any things I would want to watch out for?

 

[scsinet]

The #1 concern I always have with buying live rock second hand, particularly when you are buying from someone who obviously didn't know much about aquariums, is what additives have been absorbed into the rock. For all you know the previous owner had coppered the system before. Normally I wouldn't do all this stuff, but who knows what Chain-Pet-Store employee told him to dump in in the past that could cause you problems. Lots of the "algae killers" out there are very nasty, and lots of times neophytes reach for these when they have algae problems.
If I were you I'd run the gamut on water tests on the water of the cure system prior to introduction and ensure that everything reads okay.
ALso, you may consider using Vinegar or another acid buffer to drop the PH of the cure tank into about 7.5 or so. Dropping the pH will cause the rock to release lots of stuff they've absorbed into the water to make it easier to find it with tests.
Finally, stick a polyfilter into the water of the cure system and leave it there in a high flow area for a week or more. Polyfilters turn colors in the presence of heavy metals (copper turns it green if I recall).

 

[dstoneburg]

Its not that they did not know how to take care of an aquarium or anything like that. They are very knowledgable and I know they did not add anything that I would not want. Im more worried about either, the algae spreading, or unwanted things enter my DT?

 

[scsinet]

Well you don't prevent algae by trying to keep it out of the tank, as that would be futile. You prevent it by limiting the nutrients that allows it to grow.
Ergo if you don't have the nutrient problem in your tank and you scrub the visible algae off the rocks, you should be fine.