Sprattoos 75G Reef

[Sprattoo]

I had kept a 55 gallon and a 29 gallon side by side for the past year or so pretty much right on the floor, everything half rigged together, and strapped in on a budget.

FINALLY IT HAS COME!!! I built a new counter ready to hold a ton + of weight and a new setup from Inland Reef Aquaria.

at least 50% of this water and 75% of the sand and 90% of the rock was cycled from my old tanks when I set up so this tank was cycled rapidly.

It is a 75G glass aquarium with internal overflow and holes pre-drilled in the bottom. I got the plumbing kit and $15 of PVC and valves from Ace and this setup was ready. Under the counter is a standard 20G tank that I put a divider in the middle. half water is trickled in for a lighted refugium. The other side is for my skimmer (If Aqua direct ever gets it to me), heater, pumpand where my RO/DI will do manuakl top-offs when needed.

The hood has 2 175 MH bulbs. I am keeping soft corals only with fish so I feel this should be sufficient light.

I made almost all of the Live Rock myself. It has taken over a year to figure out how to make tank safe rock, and it takes nearly half that to wait for it to cure before plopping it into the tank. The result though is nice. I plan to make WAY more and place and sell small bits after it is "live".

 

[Reef Guy11]

Very nice, that great that you made your own LR. What is the process What did you use to form them how long did you have to wait for before you placed them in you tank etc.

 

[Sprattoo]

I sort of used but modified the GARF.org process.

Info on how to make the stuff on GARF is pretty vague, one website with a couple different ways.

What I ended up doing was Mixing up either fine play sand or caribsea type sand. When I used the play or regular sand I mixed in a bunch of crushed oyster shells. after one batch I started making crushed oyster shells a standard addition. They are cheap (blue seal feed sells them by the pound) I have also done some with snail shells I find here on the beach.

At any rate... I mix shells and sand thoroughly for 2 reasons, to make the dense rock lighter, and add the much important calcium shell content. I can't find Type III portland cement here ANYWHERE. So I had to settle with type I or II. It cures slow but as with all things reef.. patience is key.

I mix about 2 parts cement with 5 parts sand / shell mix. WEAR PLASTIC OR LATEX GLOVES when mixing to prevent skin damage / cement burn.

Slowly I start adding water until the mix becomes just mushy enough to "drizzle" it. In a plastic bin (I got one at Walmart for $2.00) Filled with about 3-6 inches of WET sand dig the "mold" for your LR form. You can make tonga style, arches caves.. GARF.ORG has good pointers on that. The more holes and voids in the rock the better as I see it.. this makes attractive but dense rock.

Let it sit for a couple of days in the sand remove it. Now comes the hard part... these TERRIFIC looking rocks are in NO WAY safe for an aquarium. If you just plop rocks in at this point your PH will go right up to 11 or 12 (Which is what the cement is).
I spread them out in the preferably summer sun on black landscape plastic for a month to finish curing and hardening.

Then pile them into a barrel, or some moving water source. If in a barrel it should be change every 2 or 3 days. do this for a couple of weeks.

Then go to your local grocery store, or restarant supplier and buy enough cheap white vinegar to soak all the rock in. Circulate the vinegar if possible. after a week of vinegar soaking the rock needs to be thoroughly rinsed with water. Put them back in the water barrel for a day or two then check the PH. If they are neutral (7.0-7.2 depending on your H2O) they are ready.

Many of the rocks will come apart in the vinegar stage as it weakens the cement bond slightly. HOWEVER, the fun part is glueing pieces together into dream LR shapes with either aquarium silicone or ... currently I am experimenting with a certain type of cinder block type bonding stuff.

Thats it.. plop it in.. inside of a few weeks in a good tank it starts to become "live" I glue pieces of coral or zooanthids on. GARF grunge or scraped coraline sprinkled over the rock will accelerate the process greatly. I put 3 LBS of the stuff in my 29 and it went nutty.


_Sprattoo