Best DIY Rock Recipe
- Thread starter jman77
- Start date
bacawarrior
New member
There's lots of recipes. The cheapest would probably be portland type I cement mixed with crushed Oyster Shell. You can get the oyster shell at your local feed store(chicken feed) for around 5-10 bucks for a 50lb bag. Mix in a ratio of 1 part cement to 4 parts shell. You can also use crushed coral, aragonite sand, play sand, etc. Stay away from gravel as it may have metals in it that can leach out. Also, be sure to cure it WELL! I just made some a few weeks ago that's curing right now. Didn't think to take any pics though. I'll be making more in about a month. Here's some links. You can also find info on garf.org about it.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_argocrete.php
http://diy-doityourself.blogspot.com/2007/05/making-live-rock.html
http://www.athiel.com/lib10/rockmaking.htm
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/breeding/legitt_rocks.html
http://home.comcast.net/~daves-reef/diy_liverock.htm
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_argocrete.php
http://diy-doityourself.blogspot.com/2007/05/making-live-rock.html
http://www.athiel.com/lib10/rockmaking.htm
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/breeding/legitt_rocks.html
http://home.comcast.net/~daves-reef/diy_liverock.htm
hahnmeister
In Memoriam
1 part portland type 3 cement (white)
4 parts crushed coral sand (lots of fine dusty sand and large chunks mixed together.
When formed/drying, cover visible surface with .5-1.5mm aragonite... so you end up with about a 5:1 ratio of substrate to cement.
Let it dry for a week.
Cure it in freshwater for a month (1x per day turnover of water at least).
4 parts crushed coral sand (lots of fine dusty sand and large chunks mixed together.
When formed/drying, cover visible surface with .5-1.5mm aragonite... so you end up with about a 5:1 ratio of substrate to cement.
Let it dry for a week.
Cure it in freshwater for a month (1x per day turnover of water at least).
silverwolf72
New member
Mine was 1 part portlan, 1 part water softener salt and 2 parts oyster, 1 part arrogate sand
NanoReefWanabe
Active member
i just used regular rock salt for mine...but didnt like how it turned out so i also used water softener salt...but i crushed it up a bit to get varying sizes of it..rinsed the dust and that was that...
bacawarrior
New member
One thing about using the water softener salt, you wanna make sure and read what is in it. It needs to be pure sodium chloride. Some softener salts have other additives in it.
Just to let you know Type III portland is not readily available as a bagged good everywhere in the US. It only differs from Type I/II by achieving a high strength early on during the curing process. This is not necessary if you plan to cure your rock for at least a week (since it will typically achieve 75% its strength by this time).
itstheantitang
New member
The type III, however, is white like aragonite and not like concrete.
