The Ultimate DIY Rocks!

[airinhere]

Recently I got a little ambitious and decided to make my own reef website. I have a section about making aragocrete rocks, a video of the same material as a presentation I gave for my local reef club and most of the rockwork in my tanks is man made live rock. Special thanks to Insane Reefer and Travis for their input while I put together my presentation.

Check it out.

http://www.airinheresreef.com/

IR, I am still trying to figure out how to make the diving smiley GIF into my avatar.

 

[Insane Reefer]

Great Work on the site Aaron! How do you manage to keep up with all of those tanks?!? I have trouble keeping up with my Biocube, lol!

I've PM'd you about the Smilie

 

[Insane Reefer]

This is weird - I've gotten two RC notices about Goldmanic having replied to this post, but both times there has been nothing new posted. Anyone else getting that?
According to RC, at around 8am this morning he posted, and again just a few minutes ago at 12:06 he posted. But nothing is here.

This is very odd....

 

[MThompson]

I got that about your post at 11:20.....I clicked the link, read the new stuff, deleted the email and about 10 minutes later I had another one....but nothing new

Now at least I know I am not crazy, or have bad deja vu.

 

[goldmaniac]

I am trying to compliment your reef tank website, but RC is failing to put my entries onto this thread...

E.G.

 

[goldmaniac]

ok, now it looks ok.

Great web site - i espeically like the acitinic nano tank and the Koralia4 mod is very detailed, compliments on that, too....

 

[Insane Reefer]

How odd.
Glad you finally got to post
Good to know I'm not loosing it.

 

[logiktest]

I went through the same thing this morning @ 8:02AM and 12:07PM.

 

[Insane Reefer]

Happy Birthday Biocube!

Happy Birthday Biocube!

I realized a little while ago that today is my Biocube's 1st Birthday! :celeb1:

So here is an updated picture. Mainly I wanted to show the coralline growth and spreading 'shrooms, so I moved the big rock down a bit so the backwall could be seen better. You can see Bogo, my tail-spot blenny hovering, hoping for some food.

If I had been a little quicker, the new centerpiece would have been in, but I have been caught up in the garage, doing a major "spring cleaning" and organizing.

Anyway, the centerpiece is cycling in with some other rock for another project, and I'll put it in, with all those loose corals mounted, probably the end of next week.

 

[airinhere]

Thasnks for the compliments. I have been having fun putting the site together.

IR, you are getting great coraline growth on your rockwork!

Post another shot once you get the centerpiece in. (I love looking at pictures).

 

[Insane Reefer]

Yeah, the coralline has really taken off in the last 2 months. I keep rubbing this one piece of rock with a really dark red coralline growing on it over the backwall, hoping to get it to take. I think that either it is starting to, or the red bubble isn't as gone as I hoped.

Once the centerpiece is in, I will post another picture

Now I just need to start really stocking it.

I'll be accepting frag donations over the next two weeks.
:bum:

 

[Afishianado]

I have read every post in this thread on every split....I think it has to be a marathon record...Thanks everyone who has contributed

INSANE, do you have any recent pictures of the early Perlcrete in action?

Your year old biocube is looking good. Congrats.

The only real downside I can see to the man made rock over time is that most of the time people seem to have trouble growing coralline it. I have seen it with rock that I made last year as well. Your biocube looks healthy but the coralline growth is not representative of a years worth of growth. Not saying something is wrong with your tank or anything like that, just that you seem to be experiencing the same retarded coralline growth as others have. I have read some scientific/industry studies about algae growth on substrates and they indicate the same effect...coralline does not have an affinity for cement. Does anyone have any ideas about how to encourage the coralline to grow on the MMLR? I know that for filtration reasons it isn't important and I will be using the MMLR as described here for my next system(s) but people like coralline, me included. I know that PVC in the rocks was tried and turned out badly. I wondering about acrylic dust, maybe sprinkled on/into the surface at the end of casting. Coralline is known to have an affinity for acrylic and if it was only on the surface it shouldn't affect the overall strength of the rock. Just wondering if you had put any thought into it and it hadn't found it's way into the thread.

 

[Insane Reefer]

Ok. I will get a picture of "Disco Dancing Rock" today while I'm at the LFS - it, and another rock are there in a Biocube 14. Now to be honest, that tank was a mess. I had to go in and take the bio-balls out and add a heater, and the water parameters were hosed (they are too busy to keep up with it, I think), so it has been really rough going for that system, and for that rock. But I'll post a pic, for what it might be worth

Fair enough. But it should be mentioned that for nearly 6 months of the year that this tank has been up, I was functioning on one 18W light - the ballast on the other light blew out and I had a horrible time getting a warranty replacement. I chose to light the front half of the tank, and not the wall. When I finally added the second light, I had an "explosion" of coralline growth compared to previous growth.

I've read similar research about coralline vs substrate. And while it is fascinating, is coralline growth in aquariums really an issue? Other research articles suggest that coralline blocks the pore structure of rock, thereby reducing water flow through the rock, which to me reads as "makes the rock less beneficial". I'll give you that coralline is pretty, and desirable to a certain extent, but considering that eventually most of the rock will be covered with corals, I'm not going to worry over slow coralline growth. So most of my reading and "experiments" have been more in making more chemically stable rock, and making rock more quickly. Maybe if I solve these, I'll move on to cover this But I think I read, maybe here, that shaved acrylic sort of has the same "flaw" as PVC. Glazing rock has crossed my mind - like in a kiln, but the high heat involved wouldn't be good for the cement.

My thoughts on the "why" are based on the chemical reaction still going on within the rock, as well as surface alkalinity. This is something that would have to be researched by someone qualified, but I personally think that it is sort of two-fold. The ALK (as opposed to pH) of new, freshly kured rock is still really high, and there isn't much that can be done about it, other then add micro-silica or other pozzolana, but these work by blocking up the pore structure of the matrix, among other things, so to my line of thought, undesirable. If there is something other than pozzolanic additives to lower the ALK, I haven't come across it yet. Based on this, and "retarded" growth on fresh rock, I think that maybe the coralline don't like alkaline surfaces.
The second part builds on the first to a certain degree - the rock is less hospitable so is less likely to be utilized right off. And coralline really seems to dig glassy or smooth surfaces over any other surface offered (which is something backed by some of those research articles), so if there is a choice of something they normally prefer anyway, and something that is less then perfect right off the bat, I'm pretty sure they will take the surface they prefer until that surface is ready to accept it. The surface becomes ready as a good bio-film is grown, and that takes a little while to happen.

 

[Afishianado]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12048972#post12048972 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Insane Reefer
I've read similar research about coralline vs substrate. And while it is fascinating, is coralline growth in aquariums really an issue?

I think that to most reefkeepers the answer would be yes. I have seen the occasional person claim it to be nuisance to them, but I believe them to be few and far between. Widely...Coralline is actively desired. Neccesary? no. Again, I am not criticizing the development of the MMLR, just that it would be a good thing to overcome the issue of retarded coralline growth, if possible and feasible. And also, like I said before it isn't enough to stop me from making and using the rock...

<a
href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12048972#post12048972 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Insane Reefer
Other research articles suggest that coralline blocks the pore structure of rock, thereby reducing water flow through the rock, which to me reads as "makes the rock less beneficial".

Allowing for this possibility only affects the portions of the rock that is covered with coralline, which I would feel confident is saying is less than half. Even the best tanks don't grow coralline on the undersides and backs/sides of rock that are shielded from the light.

 

[Yinepu]

dang... time for an update!!!

I tried making some rock from the white stucco ... it looks nice and cures (kures?) pretty fast... but falls apart in the tank after a few months... no harm to the critters... just doesn't look very good when it falls apart... makes ok rubble though

I need to make some more of the "regular" rock one of these days... I did notice that letting it sit dry for a month (before soaking) really seemed to help the cure ... One batch that I let soak from the beginning took a lot longer to cure than the rock I let sit dry....

 

[Insane Reefer]

Hey there, Yinepu
Thanks for reporting back in with us and sharing. Even though the stucco was a failure, we still learned something from it...
If you can, and it isn't a big deal, could you post a close-up pic or two of the failed rock? And maybe, just maybe, send me a small sample of it?

Wiki says that "modern" stucco has portland and lime in it, and is "hard and brittle". I wonder if it it would also breakup in FW too? Basically was it the saltwater that caused the breakup or was it just doomed to fail. Hmmm...

I have been collecting samples over the last year, of rock that was not kured, some at 2 months, at 6 months and at right around a year. Put them in unsealed ziplock bags, labeled with what they were. I am hoping to purchase a meter this month. Well. I am buying a meter this month, I just have to decide on which one I want, lol.

Anyway, several of us have tried the "air-kure" now, and we all seem to agree that it seems to decrease water and time in water needed for rock. I will be able to put this method to the pH test once and for all, once I decide on a meter, lol.

I will tell you that my college buddy bought a pH probe (the software only works on his MAC), and we ran 2 "preliminary" tests on my aged samples, and both samples (2 months and 1 year) showed a pH of ~10
I think we are really onto something here...

If anyone out there would like to contribute samples, this is what I need:
First, you must know the approx age of the samples, like within a month or so if it's actual age. Digging through the casting box won't work as those samples could be of almost any age (unless you've only made one batch...). Next, these pieces need to unkured - basically, bits that fell off (or you broke off) before the rock made it to your kure bin. The pieces need to be about the size of a golfball, maybe a bit larger. And I need you to put them in a bag or envelope, with date of casting, what recipe you used, and anything you may have done or added that might effect anything at all. If you want to contribute, please PM me and we can discuss details.

So go on, go look for some rock bits for me

 

[Afishianado]

Could this high pH for so long be part of what affects the coralline?

 

[Insane Reefer]

Not really, Fishi, I don't think so. After the "air-kure", the rock still goes into water, and drops its' surface pH, and pH and ALK, while similar, are different. It is known that while the pH of rock can be ~8, the ALK can be off of most lower level test kits scales, and can take 6 months to a year to equalize.

Now, it only seems to be the pink, purple and red corallines that might be affected. Green coralline was covering close to 70% of my backwall within 6 months, even with the 1/2 light - it doesn't seem to mind the surface of the rock at all.

And I got to thinking about it, and the long rock that goes across my tank was put in like 2 weeks after I setup the 'cube, and it is Real LR - it also blocked the light from the bottom 1/3 of the backwall. As you can see in the latest photo, its covering of coralline isn't much better than the MLR's.

I don't think MLR shows much evidence of "retarded" coralline growth. In new systems, it takes a while, just like everything else - and IME, not much longer then if barren RLR was used.

I think a lot of it has to do with when the rock is added. In a healthy, mature and booming system, MRL rock will start to grow coralline almost immediately, and cover fairly readily. Just like when you start a new system, and it takes 3 months to get those first spots of coralline on the glass - same deal here...

Now if you wanted to do some research on your own, in the GARF article that I reference in the "Super Long Post", the woman who wrote it talks about either Sodium Bicarbonate or Sodium Carbonate - I can't remember which off the top of my head. She never actually says what it is added for, but from some small snippet I found at one point, leads me to believe that it might help lower the ALK in cements, when blended into the mud.
Maybe that would be something you could look into.

 

[Afishianado]

I see. You are saying that while the water pH might be low that the alkalinity of the actual cement is still quite high. I wonder if it is something that you could reduce with a neutralizer of some kind?

Wouldn't things like the sodium bi/carbonate be alk increasers?

 

[Afishianado]

oh and any pictures of the dancing rock? also any rock that was made from white portland vs gray portland. I wonder how the appearance of the 2 differ over time.