DIY Liverock?

Andyoybna

Has anyone ever tried making your own "live rock" or base rock, basically using concrete and mixing it with crushed coral/sand etc to give it the look of natural rock, but you can make it any size you want, and cut/carve it into any shape you want instead of looking for that one piece of LR you must have to go in a certain spot that needs to be just right!

What I was thinking about doing is, getting rid of my african cichlids since they just don't excite me anymore sadly, and doing a completely "fake" reef tank in it.

Now, what I would want to do is put a layer of concrete on the bottom and put sand on top to give it the texture and look of a sand bed, with a very thin layer of sand on the top for easy cleaning and the look, without the mess, and keep the clenliness of a bare-bottom tank. Then I would make all of the rock out of concrete with crushed coral, with interlocking pieces and natural looking shelves, I love Tommygun's shelf he made out of that slab of rock, and I wanted to do a multi-shelf multi-level rock arangement with tons of caves. not to mention the ease of hiding equipment with costum made rocks, although I'll probably make an overflow w/ a refugium.


Anyways I was just wondering if any of you had ever tried it, any tips, recipies for the concrete mix. If not I guess I'll just wing it and tell you all how it goes.

new2me

I am going to attempt this as well. I bought the cement and some small shell's, just need to get the crushed coral.

Andyoybna

maybe we can help eachother out on this then, If it works well in my 33, It will give me an opportunity to do my 90 in SW, instead of spending a fortune on 150Lbs or so of liverock.

As far as I can tell though, basically you have some sort of container, fill it with your sand/cc mix, make it "moist" and just dig a hole for the mold of what you want the rock to look like, then cover the top with some more sand/cc mix, let set for 24 hours, soak in vinegar for 24 hours, then soak in fresh water for 5 days before its cured.

new2me

That's pretty much how i have seen it done. But i dont remember the vinegar part, just fresh water for a week then cure in saltwater as i would normally do with my rock. I was going to try this in my 29 when i get it and just keep my existing rock in the 75. But anyways, yes i think that we could deff. help each other on this lil project.

gm333

I have a good recipe I got from a good friend. I cannot post it here though, If you PM me your e-mail I will send you the recipe, it is in acro reader file so you have to have adobe acrobat to read it.

Andyoybna

Well, I just made my first batch of concrete LR, hopefully it turns out ok, We'll see in a couple of days after it dries and I start to cure it, and I'll make sure to take pics!

Also, I made it as cheaply as possible, I also forgot to get crushed coral, so basically the first 3 pieces are just sand/lava rock chips and concrete, and the 2nd batch of 3 is going to be concrete/lava rock chips/concrete and I added some white aquarium gravel I had laying around in a 5 gallon bucket, I dug the first 3 pieces out this morning and laid them out to harden more, and I'm actually pretty happy with the shape/texture... pics soon, maybe even of the process I used to make them.

Edit:

Here is an update now that I have 2 batches dried, and are now curing, it actually made some very interesting, and natural looking pieces of rock. They are not quite as porous as I would like them to be, but then again, it is for a fish only tank and I used less than optimal materials. Ideally I would have liked to add spiral plastic shavings, and crushed coral, but I settled for just sand, white gravel, pieces of lava rock, and cement. Not the prettiest texture/color, again because of the choice of materials and lack of time and money, but remember it will eventually be covered in different algaes and corraline.

A couple pieces:




Curing "tank" just a big tote with 2 powerheads in it for circulation, I plan on doing at least 1, 100% water change a day to help with getting all of the chemicals/lime out of the cement.

Nereaga

Nice man!! Keep them pics coming!!! I wanna see how it progresses...

gm333

Looks good, this is an excellent way to add base rock to your aquarium with out spending lots of money.

phahiki

This looks amazing, keep us updated!

pescadopaublo

Just out of curiosity, what kind of concrete are you using? I often tell my clients (im a mason) that you should never use salt (in the winter) on any type of masonry, because the salt breaks down the concrete causing it to deterirate and spawl.