Hey Guys, I am curious about this whole rock cooking thing. Is this something you do when you are experiencing problems like hair algae or is this more of a preventative measure to insure a more stable system?
It depends on what you mean when you say rock cooking. Are you talking about boiling rock or cycling it?
To me it means taking live rock that may have some dead organic material on it and basically cycling it outside your tank. It could be done to shorten (or eliminate) the cycle on start up of a new tank or make the live rock safe to add to an existing tank. I don't see any good reason to ever boil rock. With live rock you just made it dead/dry rock and if there were any palys or zoas on it you might have just poisened yourself or your family. With dry rock I'm not sure what could be accomplished...an acid wash would do a better job of removing surface phosphates.
Ive always been under the impression that rock cooking is to get rid of a problem, ie hair algae, Aiptasia on a specific rock or rocks by boiling it. imo it's not worth the hassle just get some new dry rock. You should be able to find it around here at reasonable price.