Im poor and am looking to make my own live rock

[andy2]

Hello, in the middle of building my first 125 gal tank. I went broke. Ive been looking at making my own concrete rock for 10 cents a lbs/ 200 lbs. What I need help in understanding is how do I get quality CORALLINE ALGAE to grow on and prosper onto the concrete rock and sand bed that wont cost me a fortune. I was thinking that if I put in say 25lbs quality live rock and let that pass the algae to the 200 lbs of concrete rock, that would work but (1) how long will it tank and (2) will the algae be of a good quality so that when I do eventually add the coral, fish, etc to the tank, will my man made live-rock properly keep the tank healthy? Any ideas on how to inexpensivly carry this plan out, and will it work?
PS I read that if I visit my LFS, I could have them give me there scrapings of algae, and I could put this into my tank. Good Idea???
PSS when making this great transfer of algae, should the protein skimmer be running during this process? The lights? Yet the sump will be so that the algae will be spawning....

 

[wedfr]

first off if yo make yrou own rock you have to let it cure for a month or 2 in constanty changing fresh water becasue the concrete raises the alk just way too high. then after that itll take another couple of months to get yrou coraaline going. it wont be fully covered for a LONG LONG probably a year or 2.

 

[andy2]

So how would you recommend I go about this?

 

[wedfr]

well if you have the time and the patients to wait to get yrou tank up and runnign then make all of your rock let it harden for a week or so. it takes some time for concrete to fully cure. Then you have to let it sit in fresh water for a couple of months constanty changing the water. get a big tub or garbage pail or something and let it sit outside and let the garden hose run through it. Take some ph and alk tests every once in a while and when they come into range youll be good to put it in the tank. just make sure when you take the tests its not right after the water has been changed let it sit in the water for a week before you test it.

Then when its ready put it in an empty tank with no animals in it and setup some Normal output actinics over it with soem shavings /scrapings of corraline from other live rock or some pieces of live rock to seed it. You only want some low wattage actinics dont put PC or VHO itll grow faster with te normal output bulbs. Keep the calcium levels up and also for optimal growth magnesium and strontium.

If you dont have the patients its not worth it, it takes alot of work and time

 

[jackson6745]

I heard of people putting the rock in the back of the toilet to cure....NOT in the toilet...LOL

[ May 18, 2003, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: jackson6745 ]

 

[andy2]

Message for wedfr: curing the concrete for two months isnt a problem. Its either that or come up with 500 dollars for the live rock. My questions at this point will be (1) how long for the shavings to grow on the rock? (2) how much growth in terms of percentage b4 I can move in some life? and (3) should I be running my protein skimmer and using any prefilter materials during this growth period which will inadvertantly catch the sporing algae Im trying to grow?

Message for jackson6745: what??? are u pet land?

 

[wedfr]

you can put life in as soon as you want, coraline will grow with life in teh tank. as far as how long it will take it just depends on yrou water quality your lights and of course every tank is differnt, dont expect it to be a quick process though. Also you might want to try Seachems reef calcium it made my corraline grow sooo much quicker.

$500 for rock, how many pounds do you need?

 

[andy2]

The high cost is due to shipping charges. 125 * 1.5 + shipping. Even at $4 a lb????? Hell, if I buy it local its still $4-7 per lb plus tax thanks Bloomburg!!! If I have to, I can do 50 lbs live rock and the rest base rock, but I might as well make my own via concrete. Its all about the money. If you have any suggestions, Im all ears.

 

[wedfr]

i hear ya shipping charges are outragous. I actually am seling about 160 pounds of liverock if you check the selling forum. its $300 if you take it all

 

[Rebels23]

Andy,

If you are looking to get some really cheap base rock, you can also check out this site : http://www.hirocks.com/pages/894239/index.htm
HTH

Rebels23

 

[earthbounddog]

Hi Andy:

I made rock for my 55 gallon tank from aragonite
sand and cement. Got the recipe from GARF. If you
use oyster shell which I hear is used as chicken feed and comes cheap you could make some for
next to nothing. I cured mine in a trash can
with a powerhead changing the water once a week
and it was ready in 6 weeks, which seemed like forever at the time. The less cement you use to
bind the rock the faster it will cure, so you might use the recipe on GARF for "lace rock" to get it to cure a little quicker. I did something kind of cool also that I thought up myself which was to build a structure around a piece of acrylic tube which I plumbed as the overflow. So I have kind of a volcanoe that the water flows into down to the sump. I like it a lot. As far as the corraline goes if you get the tank parameters good for it it will grow fairly fast. Lots of actinic light, good calcium levels, etc.
Also crraline really likes shell so you might try to make sure the outside of your rock is covered pretty well with shell. You should also take the time to figure out how to make some cave rocks and things- you'll be glad you did.
I have about 50% corraline coverage after 6 months and the rock is starting to blend well with the live rock.
All that being said, if i could do it all over again I would save up the money for actual live rock. The rock I got from gulfview down in Florida is really awesome and full of critters, clams, etc. Much cooler than the homemade.
I would consider making some on a tank the size of yours though and use it as a base structure to cover with "real" rock. Will save you a ton.

 

[earthbounddog]

Here is a link:

http://scubaraven.com/diy_liverock.htm

 

[Dopler]

I made a Few Pieces of agronite base rock last year i let it sit in a bucket for 2 months, changing the water when i remembered,now its been in the tank around 6 or 7 months and is covered with coraline alge and some sponges and some xenia has actually started moving on to it,you can hardly tell it from the other rock

 

[jackson6745]

Has anyone used tried using Tufa rock in their tanks?

 

[andy2]

Hey guys, I really have this crazy schedule. Ive read your post and am very greatful. Perhaps its better if I go with the live rock, but money is the issue. Without money, time is all I have. There are many great offers out here for the live stuff, but unless you got a job for me to earn the money- no drug deals, I anint got the money. What about 10 - 25 lbs at a time? How will the chemistry of the tank be affected by this????

 

[andy2]

earthbounddog, thx. Ive been to garf. Thats actually where I got the idea from. Lace you say. I didnt see that. Ill check them again tomorrow. Well, in a few hours I guess. How many lbs did you make? Where did you get the C. algae from? How did you disperse it in the tank? Or did you grow it in the garbage can with the rock? Did you run the protein skimmer in the tank while the transfussion was taking place. i saw that you mentioned the atinics??? Someone else mentioned NO lighting???? Thx

 

[Dopler]

I cycled my tank with 30 pounds of live rock and 70 pounds of base rock when i set it up.The base rock now has a ton of coraline alge and sponges on it.I also added 5 pounds of live sand from GARF to the sand bed.My tank is just over a year old right now and i'm happy with the results so far

 

[earthbounddog]

I made about 50 lbs and ordered 30 from
GulfView down in Fla. The coralline was
on the Gulf View live rock, which was
well worth the dough. If you can get
a good deal on some you should get it.
just as a warning, if you can't
swing a live rock purchase you're in a lot
of trouble down the road as the expenses
will just keep on coming. I thought
once I had the rocks and lights that the
main expenses were taken care of, but I think
many here will agree that maintaining a large
tank is way more expensive than they anticipated
at the beginning. If you do a fish only tank
with live rock it may not be too bad, but 125 gallon reef tank will take mucho money and time to complete properly. You can save a lot if you
have extraordinary patience though. One other thing, in case you're planning around it, the GARF "bulletproof" reef recipe with the cheesy skimmer and low light will not work for most people. I don't how they keep those corals alive but heavy dosing of supplements is definitely involved and in the long run will cost nearly as much as getting the right lights and skimmer in the first place. As far as adding 10 lbs live rock at a time, that will work great as long as you use fully cured live rock or wait until you have it all and have it cycled before stocking the tank with any delicate inverts or coral. You'll have a mini-cycle from 10 lbs if it's not fully cured.
To get the Coralline going you will want to use light heavy on the actinic about 60-70% actinic - the coralline loves it! Also make sure you're calcium is good, dosing with a little kalkwasser would help if it's low, and make sure there is good water movement. The 10 lbs at a time idea would be great for this if you get it from different places as the more species of Coralline you have the better it will do.

Good luck with the project and hope this helps!

 

[andy2]

Man Im hungry. Anyways I will be using 640 watts 4 bulbs- 2=50/50 and 2=atinic. VHO 120 watts each. I have a Aqua C 180 protein skimmer with a Mag 7. Just got 60lbs live sand Natures Ocean. Ive just spent the day building the plenium. Used egg crate and fiberglass screening with 120 lbs sand total. Using an CPR 800 gal an hour overflow into a 30 gallon AGA sump with a Mag 9.5 as a return. Thats roughly 650 gals a hour water flow through the entire system. Finally I have a Fluval 404 running for Carbon filtering and also acting as a power head. Still waiting on the heaters and three more power heads to arrive. So as you can see, Ive run out of money and can wait on the rock??????? But hell, ive enjoyed every second of building both the hood and stand, so doing the rock wont really bother me.

 

[earthbounddog]

That should work great!
It's hard to wait when you
have all the gear. Been
there myself.

later,
Mark