The Ultimate DIY Rocks!

[kwaters]

Thats alot of rock! Did you follow the same cure methods, or do it before you saw this post?

I picked up a bag of water softening salt to day from HD. $4.99 for 50 lbs.

Quickcrete $2.39 for 60 lbs.

A lot cheaper then $5 per pound of LR. I got about 45 lbs of LR already (at a much better price than $5/lb) but it is not enough.

Anyway, your coraline looks great. As for the tap, everyone says use RO/DI. My tap is loaded with chlorine so I use RO from my LFS.

Kris

 

[hplexx]

no i yust left it for 2 days in clorax and then 3 water changes thats it .. its a ten gallong its not that much . its prety heavy doe.
dont have lot of money for ro doe,,..,

 

[gary faulkner]

Concrete mix is very heavy, not the best option for MM Liverock, IMO

 

[kwaters]

Understandable. I mixed in quite a bit of the rock salt...made just a small amount today. If it doesn't turn out....it doesn't turn out. I will buy a 94 lb bag of portland!

Kris

 

[GuySmilie]

If you're going to use sand as an aggregate, why not try a bag of masonry cement? Sand is already mixed into the bag. And the bags are a lot easier to tote around at half the weight of a full bag of Portland.
Guy

 

[Insane Reefer]

Very nice looking wall, hplexx.
How much rubble did you incorporate into it? Looks like several pounds.

 

[hplexx]

thanks

i have no idea i yust know i made a one bucket and some sand from the pet store and some few pieaces of live rock tiny pieaces and thats it( all fit in one bucket) yust poring it crazy let try for few day then add water and clorax . then like 3 water changes o and some declore 2

 

[kwaters]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9744331#post9744331 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GuySmilie
If you're going to use sand as an aggregate, why not try a bag of masonry cement? Sand is already mixed into the bag. And the bags are a lot easier to tote around at half the weight of a full bag of Portland.
Guy

I saw this yesterday. I looked at the masonry cement, and there were quite a lot of different types. Can you give me specifics?

I have a long ways to go with my tank (its 9 days old today!) so I am willing to fiddle around a bit.

Kris:fish2:

 

[Insane Reefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9746115#post9746115 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hplexx
...water and clorax...

I take it you mean Clorox bleach? May I ask what this is meant to do for the rock? Just curious - it is the first time I have ever heard of using bleach, unless there are worries of the rock having picked up undesirables from a open waterway...

 

[Insane Reefer]

Welcome to the thread, Kwaters

Honestly, stick with regular portland, or maybe a quick-set type. Very few here use the many varied cement stuffs you could buy - portland is cheap, and known to be safe. You can add the aggregates you want to use, and not just some unspecified sand or gravel, which any mix will have, and most don't look anything at all like what we want it too.
Not to mention that most of those mixes are significantly more expensive.

HTH

PS - I have a horse too (two in fact) - visit my gallery to see them

 

[drauka99]

i think someone mentioned in passing that they had soaked their water in a natral waterway and were using bleach to clean it back out and also in hopes (i think) of lightning the color of the rock

 

[Insane Reefer]

Yes, Drauka, I recall that a while back, but was wondering why hplexx had done it.

 

[hplexx]

.

 

[hplexx]

i know you bleach coral . to kill the bad things so i though that would make the cycle more faster and it did . i have like 8 federduster growing in my tank all ready ... so i think im doing good!!! everything looks ok

 

[GuySmilie]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9748990#post9748990 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kwaters

I saw this yesterday. I looked at the masonry cement, and there were quite a lot of different types. Can you give me specifics?

I have a long ways to go with my tank (its 9 days old today!) so I am willing to fiddle around a bit.

Kris:fish2:

Well, tomorrow when I'm out and about, I'll find the bag and give you a brand name. But I think most masonry cements are probably similar. What I looked for: at the stores there is always a damaged bag leaking on the pallet (hey buddy, whut ya doin with that knife?) . I just checked all brands until I found one where the content was lighter than the others. Different areas of the country mine different shades of Portland. The lower the iron content, the whiter the raw cement. There is not much variance in the color from one brand to the next (unless you specifically buy white Portland which I can not find in my area), but a few appear to be somewhat lighter than the others, which is what I wanted.

Next I looked over the label. Many of them will have a silica health warning, indicating that it contains silica sand. So my pretzel logic says that any bags that do not mention silica are either unlawfully labeled or contain aragonite (or calcium based) sand. Of course everyone is always honest about labeling, right?

By the way, there's no strong reasoning, IMO, to steer clear of silica sand in cement, but since I'm using silica for my sand bed already, I thought it would be nice to have some calcium based elements in the system. Probably wont be, but my conscience has been salved

Again, I did no scientific study on these different brands. Just picked the lightest color available and no silica warnings. Any brand would probably work just fine for you. I steer clear of the cements that use gravel as an aggregate (concrete and a few masonry cements). I don't find those attractive.

Anyway, I need to go check on my latest batch tomorrow, then I can get you a brand name on the cement. Maybe even a few pics of my newest rocks. They've been soaking for around 3 weeks now.
Guy

 

[kwaters]

Thanks much. I did pick out much of the gravel in the quickrete. I made a small batch and dumped some in a mold and plopped a few piles on a old piece of acrylic. No big loss if it doesn't turn out.

Question: Does conceret stick to aluminum foil?

Kris

 

[GuySmilie]

Curing concrete is very caustic (pH 12-14) and will probably attack a single thin layer of aluminum foil; depending on how it is in contact with it.
Guy

 

[GuySmilie]

OK kwaters, here is some follow-up info I promised you.

The stuff I got at Menards is called Roberts Stone Mortar Mix.
Here is what it looks like.

This is a batch I did several weeks ago curing in a vat of water. If you look closely at the water, you see what looks like a 'moire' distortion to the picture, but it's actually a scum floating on the soak water. This is the stuff you get rid of by doing the long cure before going into the aquarium. Also note the area highlighted by the blue circle. This is the rock salt precipitating out of the rock (still very obvious 3 weeks later).

Here is a closer view of the area marked in the above picture.
It's a bit out of focus as the camera was focusing on the water surface instead of the rocks below.

This was a brand new container when I first put the rocks in for their soaking period.
That stuff wont hardly come off without really scraping at it.
It's almost etched into the container.

This was the last batch I did. Mainly three flat arches to be used for a rock base to build upon in my 58g.
The piece on the far left is from a couple I did in the batch before last. They are almost ready to test for pH.

This is a tighter shot of above

Since this post contains too many pix, I am splitting it.
Continued on the next one.
Guy

 

[GuySmilie]

---- continued from previous post ----

These two pieces are from the batch before last. I don't know why they turned out lighter in color than the last batch but they did. They are also a lot more dense (heavier) than the last ones. I used the same ingredients and the same ratios, so who knows why. One thing I did on the one piece is to sprinkle some crushed oyster shell on it right after I cast them....just to see how that would work. Don't know if I like it or not.

Here is a tighter shot of the above. You can better see the oyster shell here.

You will notice that the salt really opens up the surface of the rock. Plenty of bacteria breeding grounds on this stuff!

A tighter shot of the porosity of the rock.

Here's a few pounds of rubble pieces. These will wind up in the bottom of the refugium area.

These are what I use to do my casting. This one is a cheap poly mixing vat found in the masonary supplies at the stores. I also use poly dish pans like the bus boys use in restaurants. Cheap, durable, and weatherproof. Although this one has been sitting out in the rain and the Forsythia blossoms are falling into it. That is crushed calcium poultry feed supplement in there under the rainwater. Looks and feels like very fine gray sand.

Anyway, that's the scoop on the masonry mix. For me it cuts out an extra step in the process, is easier to lug around due to less weight, and the cost is not out of line. I don't remember the exact cost but it was something like $7 or so.

My recipe is equal amounts of masonry cement and rock salt. First I mix the cement with clean water to get it to the consistency of dry cottage cheese. Then I add an equal amount of rock salt and thoroughly mix it all together.

I still do not like the color but that is really a trivial point that several of us on here fret about. Once this stuff goes into the aquarium for a few months it will be a totally different color anyway.

So there you have it!
Guy

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Thanks for the detailed pics/writeup GuySmilie! FWIW, the gunk that is coming from the rocks and what is stuck on the inside of the Kuring vat are Calcium deposits. When the salt comes out of the rocks, it is completely dissolved in the water and you can't see it. This tends to be a sign that the water in the kuring vat has reached a saturation point because the Ca(OH)2 is visibly seen.