River rocks

[No1stunner]

So I gathered a bunch of rocks from a river near by...I have put them out in the sun and spread them out for 24hrs now so they would dry and maybe the hot summer sun would kill any bacteria or algae that was on them...will that suffice or is there something else I should to do cure them (so to speak)?? The rocks will be used for the little pond I've built in my terrarium for my soon to be new corn snake...

[PatrickT]

So I gathered a bunch of rocks from a river near by...I have put them out in the sun and spread them out for 24hrs now so they would dry and maybe the hot summer sun would kill any bacteria or algae that was on them...will that suffice or is there something else I should to do cure them (so to speak)?? The rocks will be used for the little pond I've built in my terrarium for my soon to be new corn snake...

why would you want to kill bacteria or algae? You can't kill them anyway and most are beneficial for water conditions.

[trailblazer295]

@ OP I have thrown rocks on a baking tray in the oven. The sun won't heat the rocks enough to kill any bacteria. You need to heat them up much higher then nature to be sure everything is dead.

@ Patrick In terms of a pond and beneficial bacteria for filtration a rock surface contains almost none. It's the substrate (ie gravel in an aquarium) and filter media where the beneficial bacteria stays. Also there could be chemicals, bacteria etc on the rocks you don't want to put into the tank hence why it's best to boil/cook things found in nature for use in a tank.

In terms of beneficial bacteria in your filter, if it's new it's possible to find seeded media from locals to give your filter a kick start in building a colony of bacteria capable of handling the bioload of your snake. I don't know what the bio load would be, it would depend on how often the corn uses it as a toilet. If he doesn't use it in that manner you won't build bacteria or keep it alive because it like all things requires food to survive.

[No1stunner]

Didn't even think about bake them or boiling them. Ty

[No1stunner]

I ended up grilling them. Hahaha got them up slowly to about 350 deg for 10min then 500+ for another 10min
Reason I grilled them is Bc after doing more research people warned about exploding rocks especially old river rocks that may have ancient water in them. So the safest place I could think of for exploding rocks was in my grill
Needless to say no rocks exploded