diy rock

[Nessy]

Hi,
I am toying with the idea of making my own rock, hopefully to get seeded from live rock. as shown here. http://www.athiel.com/lib3/arago.htm and also on the garf site. Is this safe long term? and could there be any bad concequences from this venture.Also i would be interested to hear from anyone who has actually done this.
Thanks,
Nessy

I have close to 70# of cement and oystershell base rock in my 75g tank. It was cured for at least 4 months till the pH dropped then aged in water from the tank for another month before it went into the display tank. It looks ugly as sin in my opinion, but as its almost 2 yrs old its getting a coralline covering and has always supported a large population of sponges, mini feather dusters and now is crawling with terrebelid(spaghetti) worms
I think it has a place but I found most of the su-ites dealin with making and using it to be terminally optimistic as far as how soon pH dropped and coralline covered it. Its cheap but plan on a year before it looks presentable. It can be a worth while project when you are planning a larger tank in the future. I started mine way back when I had the 29 g reef

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com

[Kinesthesia]

I have a question... so is it safe to say that anything that is contact with other live sand and live rock will eventually become alive? I've been wondering about that as I've got some dead coral <gasp> skeletons in my tank and one has been in my tank(s) for about a year.
Does one consider a rock "live" by the presense of coraline algae, or by the presense of bacteria that aids in the nitrogen cycle ?

I also ask because my "new" (used) tank came with three sizable pieces of "blue" coral (don't know what it is, but I hear you can't get it anymore). I've been debating what to do with it, since I hear it is valuable (in the monetary sense, not in the reefkeeping sense). If I could promote it to the status of "live" (am I using a bunch of quotes or what), then it might be worth something to me.

Lastly... since an acropora (I think that's what I think the previously bleached white corals I have are) skeleton would be cool if it was covered in one color of coraline algae, I wonder if I could setup a separate tank for it and some how only provide one color of coraline. And once covered, if that would prevent other colors of coraline from growing on top.

Are there any estimates on how long coraline algae takes to grow? If I were to setup say a 20 gallon tank with an Eclipse2 hood and put a fair amount of live rock (20-30 lbs) and some other rock/coral skeletons in, any estimates on how long it would take for even minimum coverage? Any suggestions on the best possible environment ? High calcium, low phosphate ?

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I was sure that anything this expensive and addicting was illegal... I keep waiting for the ATF to kick my door down and grab my protein skimmer...

[Aquaman]

Since "live rock" is just rock colonized with various organisms it should work. The problem people have is that undesirable algae tends to coat the rock surface before coraline has a chance, but this can be dealt with by making the environment more conducive to coralline growth as opposed to hair algae growth. Keep calc and alk levels high and nitrogen compounds low. Make sure the rock you introduce is reef safe (tufa works) and that you introduce some high quality life-filled live rock. It may take a while but eventually the rock will look no different than the live rock.

I have never done this on a large scale but when I started up my reef I used a large majority of live rock and some various pieces of "tufa" rock to build the reef structure. Today, almost two years later there is no visible difference between the tufa and original live rock, the tufa is completely coralline encrusted.

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Aquaman

Since most live rock is dead coral skeletons that are cemented together with various calcerous algaes, any old coral skeletons will eventually host the myriad of critters that make it live rock. base rock would
be fairly plain with little more than the bacterial cultures and some other micro critters while at the other end would be the primo grades with heavy coralline and a wide variety of macro algaes,polyps,etc.
As far as culturing specific types of corralline, good luck. Most pieces of rock have many types growing and it will usually support whatever favors the light conditions in that particular tank, all other params being conducive for optimum growth. Based on my exp I think at least a year will be a reasonable time frame, unless you are one of the lucky ones with a purple thumb

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com

[This message has been edited by geedoug (edited 01-20-2001).]

OK, I have no idea of the corallines ability to fix nitrogen from the water, being an alga I would assume it does to some extent but I really don't know to what extent. Since it is calcerous it will require calcium, depending on water conditions you may have to add calcium etc. In my tanks I never had a lot of coralline growth until I started using B-Ionic 2 part supplement. On the other hand I have witnessed tanks at the LFS ranging from the 240 coral tank to 10g countertop nanos that got nothing but water changes that grew abundant coralline. There are wat too many variables that Ive not mastered yet to get it to grow consistantly to the point of having to chisel it off.
Whether or not its a major player in bio filtration, I dont know,perhaps Horge can expound on that, but personally I think not to any major degree. The primary nitrogen reduction mechanism is the various bacteria that inhabit the surface of the rock, and any other handy surface such as the substrate or bio balls in a wet/dry,etc. The advantage to live rock and sand beds is the bacteria groups that convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate are arobic and will live on available surfaces and increase to the level supported by the available fuel. Aaas I said it makes no difference to them, bio balls are as good as live rock to host these guys. But live rock and sand are able to host the anarobic bacteria that convert nitrates back into free nitrogen that out gasses therough the water column and back into the atmosphere. In a typical wet dry the only anarobic area may be a submerged sponge that is subject to a constant flow of highly oxygenated water and elevated nitrates. Given typical water velocities through most sumps, there isnt enough time for the proper types of bacteria to get established, whereas it can and does occur in the porous interior of LR and in the lower layers of a deep sand bed
To address the last part of the question I feel that artificial rock thats fairly porous, having the mature bacteria colonies established can be represented as cultured live rock. Rock that is mature enough to host colonies of worms and the fittle filter feeders like mini feathers and sponges are more desirable and the stuff that sports all of that and has decent coralline color and some little patches of star polyps,xenia, zooanthids or shrooms, etc will be the most desirable.

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com

[reef_freak]

Nessy,
I am currently cycling a 300g that has approx 300lbs of "aragocrete" as per GARF's recipe. (with a few slight modifications to a small percentage of the rock) It has been in the tank for 3-4weeks now and is almost completely covered with brown algae. I have to clean the acrylic every 2-4 days! I think part of the problem is that I was running all the lights for 10hrs per day. After calling Leroy @ GARF, he suggested just running the blue lights only. He is confident that if I keep the Ca & Alk high, coralline with eventually outcompete the other algaes. The other thing I am doing to fight it is setting up my refugium and ATS scrubber to compete for the nutrients. (need some Caulerpa qiuck!) I have experienced algal blooms similar to this before on other tanks, but with the homemade rock, it seemed to come quicker, and with more force. I just couldn't afford to pay $1500 for live rock, plus I always like to try my hand at things. I am sure it will eventually work out. It just takes ALOT of work/patience. I would be glad to update you periodically. Just email me.
-mike

BTW I just added a link to an algae page on John Rices 450g website, you might wanna take a look at it, it has pics and info plus other links http://www.globaldialog.com/~jrice/a...ae_gallery.htm

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com

[Kinesthesia]

Ok, forget about a particular species, or even the spread of coraline algae itself for just a moment.

What would be the optimal parameters for cultivating live rock to the point that it would be considered beneficial for the support of other life ? Or is it the coraline algae itself that does the nitrate to nitrogen conversion that makes people say that live rock is so much better than inert biomedia like a wet/dry ?

Please feel free to use a 20 gallon aquarium as an example since I just happen to have one. I was thinking of an Eclipse 2 hood for water movement/filtration (I think it's 200 gallons/hour) and two 18" NO bulbs built in. More light than that ? More water movement than that? Addition of calcium ? Removal of phosphates ?

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I was sure that anything this expensive and addicting was illegal... I keep waiting for the ATF to kick my door down and grab my protein skimmer...

[Kinesthesia]

Ok, forget about algae itself for just a moment.
What would be the optimal parameters for cultivating live rock to the point that it would be considered beneficial for the support of other life ?

Please feel free to use a 20 gallon aquarium as an example since I just happen to have one. I was thinking of an Eclipse 2 hood for water movement/filtration (I think it's 200 gallons/hour) and two 18" NO bulbs built in. More light than that ? More water movement than that? Addition of calcium ? Removal of phosphates ?

Let's just say that you had access to some live rock, and access to rock suitable for culture... how would you setup a tank for this purpose and how long would you let it run ? Would you need to put fish or maybe crabs in for products that the bacteria would need to spread ?


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I was sure that anything this expensive and addicting was illegal... I keep waiting for the ATF to kick my door down and grab my protein skimmer...

OK 20 gal Eclipse, lighting is ok for coralline,needs a couple powerheads for circulation,heater,etc. Starting off with say ten percent quality live rock and some good live sand on bottom, adding cured aragroctrete(pH stable), Tufa or limestone based Lace rock and a bunch of clean up snail and feeding them lightly,in a month there should be adequate bacterial populations to use this stuff as base rock. Probably 6 mos to a years time using monitered calcium/buffering additions like B-Ionic or one of the other 2 parts ought to yield rock thats a little better looking. IME 20g won't hold a whole lot of rock if you are looking to sell or trade but would help if you were moving from say a 29 to a 55 or 75g tank say in a years time. On the other hand if you have a good sized sump you can add it the there too and increase your output. Again I gotta say there are way to many variables to establish a firm time line.
This thread has got me thinking I am hosting our reef club meeting in march, and Reefkeeper from this board has been telling the other club members about this rock I made so I may throw some more together as examples of what can be done with shapes and textures. Oyster shell(cheapest but takes longest)to large chunky crushed coral to a more sand rich mixture. You get different effects from the different stuff, while the sand rich mix makes nice little plugs for fragged corals to be mounted on, you can add holes or whatever to facilitate mountng the frags. Anyway my thought was to try and encourage everyone to cultivate a batch of the stuff to cover expansion or to help a new reefer get started

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com