The Ultimate DIY Rocks!

[Insane Reefer]

Re: Black rocks?

Re: Black rocks?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7718091#post7718091 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by slevesque
Hi, I would love to make black rocks...

Cement Pigments in Rainbow Colors

But yes, you could use the Black Sand found at LFS, but if you try to smooth it on, you will loose a lot of texture in the rock.
Better way would be to make a cement "slurry" with the sand, and paint it on - I've done that to make grey rocks white...

 

[Savatage]

Get this. Help me out here. I mixed a batch of rocks with a cement called Quickrete Portland Cement. Is there a prob with this cement? Here is my issue. I mixed 3-cups salt with 1-cup cement. I let the rock set up in a salt form for 24 hours. Then I put it into a bucket of water and checked it a week later. The rock fell apart in my hands. Completely crushed it with very little squeezing. Can anyone tell me what might have gone wrong. What can I do differently?

 

[Insane Reefer]

Lub,
You, BSB and I are going to be going through the same thing.
I think a LOT of it will have to do with flow (how can you beat a stream/river?) as well as the thickness of the rocks themselves. The kind of flow we are going to get is going to super flush these rocks - they will never be sitting in high pH water, and gallons upon gallons will be flowing through them.

HOWEVER...
We will have to bring them in to test them - this can't be done in the wild. We will have to bring them in and soak in either fresh or salt water for 3 or 4 days, and then take a reading. If they aren't ready, we will have to take them back out, or finish at home. A R/O soak for a few days when they are finished should help, like Travis says.

Unless your rock is thicker than say 8 inches at any point, yours should be done in a month or month and a half, and that might be the case no matter how thick (within reason) if kuring in a waterway.

 

[Insane Reefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7722823#post7722823 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Savatage
Quickrete Portland Cement... The rock fell apart in my hands. ...What can I do differently?

Quickcrete has aggregates already mixed in - if you add salt, you are adding in more agg., and throwing the cement ratio off - thus rocks with no strength.

What to do differently? Don't use Quickcrete

 

[Savatage]

thanks for the info IR

 

[lubricus]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7722834#post7722834 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Insane Reefer
Lub,
You, BSB and I are going to be going through the same thing.
I think a LOT of it will have to do with flow (how can you beat a stream/river?) as well as the thickness of the rocks themselves. The kind of flow we are going to get is going to super flush these rocks - they will never be sitting in high pH water, and gallons upon gallons will be flowing through them.

HOWEVER...
We will have to bring them in to test them - this can't be done in the wild. We will have to bring them in and soak in either fresh or salt water for 3 or 4 days, and then take a reading. If they aren't ready, we will have to take them back out, or finish at home. A R/O soak for a few days when they are finished should help, like Travis says.

Unless your rock is thicker than say 8 inches at any point, yours should be done in a month or month and a half, and that might be the case no matter how thick (within reason) if kuring in a waterway.

Thanks for the reply. I just fined that every weekend I want to make a new batch, Im going to have to keep track of the ones that went in first, I think Im abdicated to making rock:lol: even when Im at work I think about it

 

[Insane Reefer]

LOL, Lub!

"Hello, My name is Lub, I'm a rock-a-holic..."

You might try plastic tags with specimen numbers on them - stick them on the bottom side with a zip tie...

 

[Insane Reefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7722174#post7722174 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Travis L. Stevens
It's still freshwater. What happens when you put a single cellular organism from freshwater to saltwater, it draws the water out of the cell causing it to burst and die.

Most of the time, this IS the case, however, I've got a bit to relate that might be relevant, I don't know...

Way back when, I had a FO, and kept a Spiny Box Fish, he ate so much and shredded the goldfishes scales and made a mess. I got tired of vacuuming scales and having to run to the LFS all the time, so I started breeding mollies, and ADAPTED them to strong brackish conditions so they would survive a bit longer in the marine environment.

Well, the Box fish gave up the ghost a couple of years later, and I had tired of the tank thing for a while, so broke it all down, except for the mollie tank - I thought they were all gone, and just got lazy, drained the tank low enough that I could move the tank outside, and left it for several months. Husband finally had enough and made me clean it out, and when I stuck my hand in to remove ornaments, I felt something move. At this time, the water level was little more than 2 inches (it had collected rain periodically). I freaked out, thinking I had a snake or something, but no - the tank was teaming with Marine mollies, better yet, I tried to do a salinity test, and it was off the chart. I had Dead Sea mollies.

I tell this because nature loves to adapt to new situations, even bacteria can adapt...

Would I worry about bringing in freshwater bacteria? No, not really - if it bothers you, just soak the rock in chlorine and then resoak in chlorine remover....

 

[Insane Reefer]

Had a thought. (Maybe a first, lol)
The Missouri River and most streams around here are pretty muddy, and silt filling the rocks has been a concern.

What about putting the rock in something like an old pillowcase before putting them in the milk crate? Think that would make a difference?

 

[Chasmodes]

This thread has given me so many ideas. Earlier I posted something about molding a corner/3 flat sides and make rocks that way to make tank walls. But, I've also read another created thread where Sidewinder770 used foam to form fake rock on his back walls. I'm thinking that I could do that to make my walls and even create an overhang with that stuff. In addition, I'll use the processes here that you all have so graciously provided to us all to make my DIY rock formations. One other idea that I had, and I'm not sure that it will work, is to use the foam to bridge rock pieces to create arches and stuff rather than forming the rocks themselves. The foam is black and shiny when applied, but live stuff like coraline grows quickly making the fake stuff look real and indestinguishable from the real stuff. I think that someone on this thread also was thinking about black rock and this may be a solution for that too. The only thing about the foam is that it's not pourous enough to be of a lot of use for filtration, but it sure looks good. Still, I plan to have plenty of the DIY rock for my biofilter in addition to the foam rock. How exciting!

Here's Sidewinder770's link:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=522988

 

[slevesque]

Thanks for the suggestion on cement pigments. What I found so far is that some of them are natural pigments, mostly iron oxides. I'm not a chemist but it sounds like an harmfull thing to a tank water. There is also synthetic pigments, probably safe. I'm looking for a supplier.

Food coloring is worth the check as well.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7727021#post7727021 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by slevesque
Thanks for the suggestion on cement pigments. What I found so far is that some of them are natural pigments, mostly iron oxides. I'm not a chemist but it sounds like an harmfull thing to a tank water. There is also synthetic pigments, probably safe. I'm looking for a supplier.

Food coloring is worth the check as well.

Of course, double check with Randy Holmes-Farley, but I would think that the Iron Oxide wouldn't hurt. After all, rust is Iron Oxide which doesn't seem to hurt reefs or reef tanks (IE Sunken Ships, rust pump screws, etc). Also people are dosing iron in their tanks and Iron Sulfide is being tossed around as a phosphate remover.

 

[Insane Reefer]

That thread is as long as this one Hypsoblennius - could you post were he actually uses the foam? Would be interested, but not if I have to go page by page, lol

 

[Insane Reefer]

No problem Sleve. Agree with Travis - Iron Oxide shouldn't be harmful in small quantities, I would watch blues and greens though, I think I remember that greens and namybe blues have copper content...

Food color bleachs out pretty quick to very pale pastel - for black, I don't think it would do much for the grey cement...

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I've been wanting to do a reef wall, but I've always been wary of using a foam backing. It just seems like to me that it would eventually become a nitrate factory. I was always inspired by Doug (dugg), an ex-COMAS member. Or should I say a COMAS member at heart living in Florida.

Dugg's Reef Wall - http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=618586

But since I'm not a big fan of foam, this thread really had a great impact. I hope to do something quite similar.

16g Reef Wall - http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=725727

I basically want to make a bunch of various size rocks to attach to eggcrate with Zip Ties like masterswimmer, then fill in the gaps with cement and mold custom pieces onto it similar to dugg's. Here are some sample pictures

Dugg's Reef Tank

Masterswimmer's Reef Tank

 

[Chasmodes]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7728161#post7728161 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Insane Reefer
That thread is as long as this one Hypsoblennius - could you post were he actually uses the foam? Would be interested, but not if I have to go page by page, lol

Sure, just figured out how to do that, LOL

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4358733#post4358733

For those that have it open, 2nd page, about a little more than half way down.

 

[Chasmodes]

Sorry about hijacking this thread, didn't mean to. There's another post going about the rock wall now, so back to DIY Rock stuff. I was just trying to figure out a way to aquascape my tank and not have a flat plane of glass in the back and instead have a useful object as my back wall. The foam provides the visual look, but the rock itself is better for the tank environment. I thought that one could use the foam to help aquascape the rocks that are made quickly without a long time kuring (like cementing them together). But now that I think about it, you could create the rocks, let them dry, then cement together, the kure, so there goes any logic that I had about the foam right out the window, LOL. I guess the foam also appealed to me because there wouldn't be gaps in it unless you intended it. I wonder if using the foam as a mold for these rocks would be cool though?

Hmmmm....

 

[Insane Reefer]

Be careful when you cement pieces together - the bridging piece needs to be strong enough that when you pick the structure up, the whole thing doesn't come apart. Pegs I think would work better, made of PVC - make the bridging piece first, with pvc plugs in where you want them, then, when you cast the end pieces, cover the top with a bit of plastic, and set the bridge on it - the pvc will sink into the fresh cement, the plastic will keep it from sticking, and you have a 3 piecer that can be easily moved, gotten into the tank, etc...
Panels can be done easily, but are best done on their backs as it were - easier to get bits that jut out and more natural looking too.

I'd avoid foam - that stuff is just scary - makes a neat effect, but talk about hazardous materials in the tank...
Been thinking of using it for under my tank though - thought one could use a bit of plywood and some plastic to fill the bottom so the foam is flush with the bottom of the trim for support.

 

[Insane Reefer]

Oh - pond foam? Never heard of such a thing, but it does look interesting. I was thinking of the stuff you get at the hardware store, lol...

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Actually, there are foams that are inert and "reef safe" (IE doesn't leak any chemicals).