How to make Arogocrete

[itstheantitang]

How do you make aragocrete?
(could I get a recipe? ie. 1 part sand.....)

What kind of sand can you use in it?
Is there issues in the water from the portland cement? How do you deal with these issues?

Thanks in advance

 

[lakebound]

This is one that I found a while back, and I hope he doesnt mind me posting his recipe, but it seems to be quite well known:

The recipe is quite simple; mix:
1 part portland cement (look for the white colored kind)
1 part sand (I used silica playsand)
4 parts crushed osyter/coral
Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly in a bucket..

Add water (approximately 1 part) until you have an oatmealy, cottage cheesy kinda consistency...

Then, take a styrofoam cooler, fill it up 1/2 full with moistened sand (again, I used cheap silica playsand, but if you can get an aragonite sand cheap, use that). Make impressions in the sand to the shape you want, fill with mix, and cover with sand.

Let the rocks sit in the box for about 2 days until they're hardened.

Take 'em out, dust 'em off, and them throw 'em in a large container of water (this is the curing process) for about 6 weeks, until they're not giving off any more "gunk". Change the water in the container weekly and you should be good..

Make more than you need and experiment with the shaping process.. You can end up with some really neat pieces..

I can't say much in terms of pros or cons yet (since I haven't actually set up a reef tank as of yet), but from my view the pros are:
1. Not harvested from the ocean
2. Cheap cheap cheap
3. Made from readily available products
4. Fun to make!
5. You can make any size or shape rock you wish

As for cons:
1. they initially may not have the exact color of base rock; but once they cover with coraline and such this shouldn't be an issue.
2. some have said that depending on the ingredients you may end up leaching phosphates (this seems to be suggested with the oyster shells I've used in mine; time will tell)

Since you've already got a lot of rock, the DIY rock should "seed" with life nicely from all your other rock..

Do a search on oystercrete and agrocrete on here and you'll find more references to getting the "life" into the rock, and some other viewpoints on it in general.

Tyler

((((((((((((((((Again, not mine Tylers)))))))))))))))))

 

[johno4]

go to garf.org to the diy pages, its easy.

they use 5 parts argonite sand to 1 part portland cement, I have used this recipe with great success!

 

[reefrubble]

Where are the pics,of your great success? We want to see them.

 

[coralguy1]

Definately check out garf.org. They have done it all. Make sure you cure it long enough! If you use oyster shell, it will be cheaper, but you need to cure it about twice as long. You can get oyster shell dirt cheap at a farm feed store (They feed it to chickens for digestion). Oyster shell needs a lot of prerinsing. It is filthy.

 

[itstheantitang]

thanks!

I had previously checked out garf but the page was messed up
when I tried.

Do you have to dechlorinate the water used in the curing process?

 

[GARFVolunteer]

My recipe is 1 part Riverside White cement made by TXI and 4 parts crushed coral. I do not like to use fine sand because it fills in the space left by the crushed coral. I personally do not trust using oystershells but many have used it with great success.

The rest is like lakebound posted.

Here is a picture I took this evening of the only rock really visible in my tank. Being on the end it does not get much light so it is still fairly coral free.

 

[GARFVolunteer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6515611#post6515611 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Fisharefoodtoo
Do you have to dechlorinate the water used in the curing process?

I have used both untreated tap water and water from a canal. Luckily, where I live, the canal water is drainage from the mountains and not from farm land. In the summer I put the rock after a buddy's head gate and before his irrigation pump. I leave it for 4 weeks, rinse it off and it is ready to go.

 

[coralguy1]

I suppose you could simply dechlorinate the rocks in a bucket with some dechlor before adding to tank.
I cure my rocks in the wastewater of my reverse osmosis/deionizer. Have your wastewater drain into a new rubbermaid type trash can or container. Install a 1/2 inch bulkhead towards the top with some 1/2 flexible hose connected to the outside of bulkhead. The hose goes into your drain and presto! You do a partial water change every time you make purified water.

 

[itstheantitang]

thanks.....I think I'll have a project!!!

The lr around here is all brown (but I have good corilline on my other rocks!), so why not make my own!

 

[GoldStripe]

The more often you change the water in it, the faster it will cure. I actually used ph down for my pool to lower the initial pH so it took longer to go off the chart. I would check the pH periodically with a FW test kit. Once it stops going off the chart quickly, you should be go to go. Just my .02

 

[douggiestyle]

also garf recomends ground up plastic. they claim that it helps the coraline get started faster. run some plexi glass over the table saw a few times. collect the saw dust and add to mix.

id trust garf with this project. try getting on their site again. if you cant...

pm me and ill attach a pdf back to you.

 

[coralguy1]

I went to Garfs coral farming class in 98. Actually, what they were reccomending was plastic shavings, or, better yet, the little spirals of plastic you get when you drill it. They say that the plastic tends to attract coraline algae faster. Also, using the spirals allows many more tiny air pockets in the rock for a more porous rock (better for filtration). I saw it firsthand and the plastic on the rocks does, in fact, grow coraline before the rock itself does. They say that black works best. We are talking about acrylic here, not just any plastic.

Ever notice how much lint a piece of acrylic collects when you clean it? It seems to have an inherent static attraction. Do you suppose it is attracting the coraline spores that way?

It does, however, give the rock a funny appearance with all those little curls sticking up out of it. A friend and I wondered if you could hit it with a flame (propane torch) for a second to melt the plastic into something a little more natural looking.