[Salt-lick]

Has anyone made their own live rock yet? I did, and I used aragonite gravel and type 2\3 powder cement, so far so good, and you can shape it anyway you like. From what I have read about DIY LR is the fact that it has such HIGH PH that you need it to soak in fresh water for a few weeks before it goes anywhere near your tank (and test for high PH)

Has anyone had any luck with making their own LR? If so can you tell us your experiences?

[e_baer]

I was thinking about trying some smaller peices out for my fuge. yeah, i would like to know of peoples experiences as well.

[e_baer]

this is what i will be doing.

http://www.athiel.com/lib3/arago.htm

[Salt-lick]

Ebaer, that is exactly what I did.. just a hint, when mixing the crete with your hands.. wear gloves lol, it dried my hands up pretty bad with the high PH it burned a little too.. just make sure when your done with letting it sit in the fresh water you cvheck the PH im going to check mine now, but when i first did it.. the PH was through the roof.. I also have a bubble rock in the fresh water tank that keeps the water from stagnating.. I'll let you know how it went.

[CyberJester]

Salt-Lick this is probably in the article that was posted in this thread. But, I have a question. Do you have to use a mold to make it into shapes or do you just mold it with your hands like clay as it starts to set up?

[Salt-lick]

I dug into the sand with my hands.. and poured the crete mix in.. there are many different ways to do it.. you can use molds but its cheaper to use a box with wet clean sand (wet enough to hold the mold like if you were to build a sand castle) let it setup over night then dig it out I also sprinked Aragonite gravel\shells over the mold before i put the cretemix in then ontop of it after i poured too.

[e_baer]

alright, thankis for the heads up! also, how many pounds did you et out of it, and how much did it all cost you...about?

[Salt-lick]

Well,If i didnt let it rain on my bag of concrete i would have had ALOT more.. As of now I have about 30+ pounds sitting in th e freshwater,

19.99 for the concrete, 15.00 for the aragonite gravel (dry) and playsand was like 9 bucks.

[e_baer]

thats not bad, how many lbs did you get out of it all?

[Salt-lick]

I got about 30 pounds, you could possibly get 60 + the 20 lb bag of aragonite, so bout 80 if you use it ALL,

[e_baer]

hmmm.....im definately about to do that! then ill add some more in my 30 to cure and when it does, ill sell it with some coral on it!

[Salt-lick]

Woot! just remember to let it sit for a bit in fresh.

[e_baer]

yeah ill do that first.

[Earthboy17]

question about all of this...

My understanding of live rock is that it is so beneficial because the rocks are so porous (from the buildup of calcium skeletons) and allow aerobic and anaerobic bacterias to proliferate.

So while I understand that just about anything can become "live" by allowing it to sit in a tank for X number of days, wouldn't it be largely ineffective because it would just be a solid chunk of cement (with some argonite sprinkled on the outside)?

Thanks for answering my question.

TB

[e_baer]

basically anything that has the bacterial growth on it is LIVE. so the glass on the tnak is live, so is the pump, sand, rock, everyhting! so by adding some of this home made live rock, you are just setting up a nice building block for the bacteria to grow on. plus it looks better than pvc pipe or something like that.

[pitbullcrazyinky]

i am interested this aslo i her you can mix up oyster shells in the concrete min "portland type 1--concrete" to help make it look real and porous also rock salt it will melt in the water making more holes in the rock

[Salt-lick]

Im not too sure on the rock salt and its safety in the water.. i know for sure oyster shells aragonite and the like are okay to use. As far and it being porous the Crete plus aragonite creates crevices, having said that.. if we were to make "REAL LIVE ROCK" it would take hundreds of thousands of years and unfortunately I don't have that time. Let us know how you make out. Mine has been sitting in fresh for the past two weeks with a bubblrock.. to keep the water moving, I change out the water everyday to keep the PH down.. Last night I added some mangroves and saltwater I will check out ALL water readings today to see where I'm at.. If the mangroves are dying because of the high PH in theory there should be some die off on it as there were some critters like opepods and shrimp in there. Will keep you posted.

[Earthboy17]

So the optimal way of doing this is to have something that is extremely porous so that you have a really high surface to mass ratio, right?

So while the rock (glass, pumps, etc.) becomes live, it's a relatively small amount of surface area that becomes live because of the density of the cement.

Two questions:

1. At what point does the DIY rock become detrimental because of the water volume it displaces? (this is probably more pertinent in a nano tank)

2. Are there any good ways of making the rocks more porous? Can you put plastic straws in the cement? Do you just drill hundreds of tiny holes in it? What's the strategy?

thanks,
tb

[Salt-lick]

I guess, this thread was started more or less for people to give thier advice, experience. Having said that, For me.. I just started creating LR for my benefit\experience\learni ng.

Once you begin to have more mass in the tank than water.. then obviously it is a problem (as far as displacement of water like you said) in theory you could use toothpicks or straws to create gaps\holes.

I have heard using certain kinds of lava rocks (as they are already very porous) however I think there are certain kinds you can and can't use depending on the minerals.

This subject is very grey at best.. so def. move forward with caution. Until we have a better uynderstanding of the long term effects on the tanks.

[dfurbee]

You need to check out GARF.org They make all of their rock, and even sell it, if you would prefer not to make it.

[kolokefalo]

I have used this before. If you can instead of using Portland cement use Hydraulic water stop cement. It has a 3 min set time so you have to work fast but you dont get the huge PH spike. Remember, the ideal way to do this is by letting the "live rock" sit for 20-30 days BEFORE you put it in fresh water. The PH spike is caused by the cement hydrating. Here is a great link for you:

LMCC

I will post some pics of my tank wit the "cement mix covering one side panel and about 1/4 of the back as soon as I can.

[Salt-lick]

Great link and thanks, I was unaware of putting it into the water after the 20 to 30 days. Very good to know.

[Salt-lick]

I take that back,

It is to setup for 48 hours, which we did.. then washed in vinegar, then soaked for a few weeks. That site is great.. I saw what you read about the chemical reactions by hydration, but letting it sit in water actually hydrates the rock (which is what we are trying to do) as long as the ph is down.. and stays down theres no reason you cant put a small piece youve created in the tank.. i would be cautious though as i have alot of $ tied up in the tank now.. I may just let it sit in another tank and see if I can get some coraline on it via other live rocks. But basically the same way GARF does it was the same way I did it. Except for the NEATO ballon cave trick, which I will be trying next week.

[mtfabel]

Also on the GARF page they mention putting plastic shavings in their mix. That is what they said to do to make it more porous.

[carmanimports]

im sorry but im not cheap and i prefure the nateral and im sure your fish would to not trying to be a jerk or anything i mean its cool that this can be done but when u do this u kijnda lose the nateraul way of the tank u know