Inukshuk rock
Inukshuk rock
Hello all,
I've been reading this thread for years. This is really an amazing community research effort. It has been extremely fun following the progress of the community-knowledge on DIY rock. This thread is a remarkable example of group-effort problem-solving and all users that had posted over the years should be proud. Thank you for writing and posting!
Now, I is time for me to share my experiences.
I spend some time in the Caribbean snorkeling and picking live rock up to see how it works and how it was formed.
In short... I found that rock is an amalgamation of coral rubble... glued together with sponges and coralline algae. So decided to replicate, in my basement, the process of
natural live-rock-making.
The photos at the bottom were done with a mixture of 60% aragonite and 40% cement. However, I tried many other mixtures (with and without salt) and they all work well as long you use the magic secret:
Make the rock in TWO STEPS!!
In the first step you make the rubble... which are small pieces of rock made to resemble coral rubble. Let is harden for a day or so and then continue to step two. The rubble pics below where done on a bed or wet aragonite... where the rubble shapes were carved, filled with mixture, and covered with more wet aragonite.
In Step two... first make the glue (same aragonite/cement mix as before) and then use it to glue together the "rubble" pieces. Put a few rubble pieces on an aragonite bed... and then add a few dollops of mix... more rubble... more dollops... and so on. Make sure to place some dollops at the joints between rubble pieces. At the end you can spray a bit of water (skirt-bottle works fine) to wash-off some of the cement and expose the aragonite. Let it harden for a few days and viola!! Natural looking DIY rock.
Then you need to do the kuring and so... as any other cement-made rock.
The innovation in this process... the trick... is to make the rock in 2-steps, so I decided to call rocks made with this 2-step process:
Inuckshuk rocks
The definition of
Inuckshuk is a man-made pile of stones. They were used by Inuits (before called Eskimos) as land marks to find "their way" in the far north, where there are no trees or prominent land features.
I figured that the name Inuckshuk will be a good descriptor of this DIY rock....
"a man-made pile of rubble".
The name Inuckshuk can be used as a quick way to differentiate the product from the rock made with the more traditional method using sand molds.
Some nice features of Inuckshuk rock:
1) Looks very natural
Because it mimics the natural live-rock-making process... the end result looks very realistic... or so to say... natural. This rock resembles some sort of "tonga branch" and it is very appealing.
2) High surface-to-volume ratio
This rock increases the surface-to-volume ratio in a fundamentally different way that the traditional method, where the main goal is to increase porosity. Inuckshuk rock increases the surface-to-volume ratio by making lots of tunnels and crevices.
Whether by pores or by tunnels/crevices... both methods to increase surface-to-volume ratio have advantages and disadvantages. As pore-size decreases its contribution to surface (relative to volume) increases... suggesting that making smaller pores is a better choice. However, as pore size decreases water flow through the pore also decreases... and since water flow is essential to deliver the oxygen that bacteria need to process ammonia and nitrites... very small pores may not be as effective to cycle nutrients. Water exchange in very small pores is governed by molecular diffusion, while water exchange in tunnels and crevices is governed by turbulent diffusion... which is orders of magnitude larger than molecular diffusion. Finally, larger pores and crevices allow pods and other small organisms (larger than bacteria) to live in the rock and hide from larger creatures. But the best of all... you don't have to choose between a porous or a cavy/tunnely rock... you can do both! ... you can use cement mixtures with salt to increase porosity and at the same time use the Inuckshuk method to increase crevices and tunnels.
3) Cheaper
You can create great rocks without salt, wax, and other extra materials meant to leave the rock (to make voids). As said above, you can still use this materials if you wish... but if you want do it on the VERY cheap, you can follow this method and still end up with perfectly operational and functional rock (from the chemical and biological point of view).
4) Blends like "real" ocean rock.
After I made my first batch... I piled it all up in the basement. When finished, I looked at the pile and I immediately had a "flash-back" from my snorkeling times in the Caribbean. It looked like "ocean floor". When Inuckshuk rock is piled... you can't tell when one rock ends and the next one begins. When a branch of one rock touches an adjacent rock... suddenly it looks like ONE single larger rock with a cave or tunnel in the middle. You can't tell apart rubble that is glued from rubble that is just touching the adjacent rock. Inuckshuck rock blends great!
Here are some pic of my fist batch of Inuckshuk rock. I hope this post was of help.
) i wish I had more time.
