I remember a discussion about this a while back. Something about you just mix something and something and voila. Not too attractive or as effective as the real thing but you can put it under real live rock and the little stuff will spread to it. Is this cost effective and worth the effort?
Making fake live rock
- Thread starter PunkMartyr
- Start date
If you are going to do that you can just add any kind of Base rock, most LFS carry somthing call Feather Rock , Its like Liverock in differt sizes but weights alot less.. or even Lava rock..
You can make your own, A friend made his with Cement basicly just mades molds with Chicken wire then put cenment all over it.. You are not looking for the accual weight but the surface area.. and with the chicken wire you can mold it to what you want..
but of course anything you put in your tank will start to grow on it.. but it takes Years for the rock to become a good seeded live rock, i mean you will have Algea growth on anything with in a week.. you would allso get some good Coraline algea growing with in weeks.
i did ti with my 90 gallon, i added 50 pounds of Base rock, and then 80 pounds of Live rock.. and 8 months later its all purple and looks the same.!
You can make your own, A friend made his with Cement basicly just mades molds with Chicken wire then put cenment all over it.. You are not looking for the accual weight but the surface area.. and with the chicken wire you can mold it to what you want..
but of course anything you put in your tank will start to grow on it.. but it takes Years for the rock to become a good seeded live rock, i mean you will have Algea growth on anything with in a week.. you would allso get some good Coraline algea growing with in weeks.
i did ti with my 90 gallon, i added 50 pounds of Base rock, and then 80 pounds of Live rock.. and 8 months later its all purple and looks the same.!
But base rock should be porous looking right like the lava rock? I could get away with rocks from outside? Actually i remember seeing this rock that looks like a clump of cement with some small rocks stuck in it, I think it would match live rock if covered in stuff. Would that maybe be a candidate?
The biggest concen with rock from outside is the potental for contaminants like fertilzer or heavy metals to be introduced to the tank.
One mthod of making your own live rock includes using crushed coral, and some kind of cement. You mix the two together and then form your own rock work with your own artistic shapes and such.
The biggest issue with this is the need to CURE the rock in freshwater for a perod of several weeks to allow the cement to stop leaching. The cement rocks will cause the PH in the water to SKY ROCKET and this is why you need to cure it.
I think there was an article on garf about making your own live rock.
One mthod of making your own live rock includes using crushed coral, and some kind of cement. You mix the two together and then form your own rock work with your own artistic shapes and such.
The biggest issue with this is the need to CURE the rock in freshwater for a perod of several weeks to allow the cement to stop leaching. The cement rocks will cause the PH in the water to SKY ROCKET and this is why you need to cure it.
I think there was an article on garf about making your own live rock.