Cheap Live Rock

[rabbut]

Hi, as the title realy,

Does anyone know of a cheap source of live rock. The going rate round my way is £12-75 the kilo, so to me it is £10.20 after discount (work in a LFS). One customer mentioned to me an online source offering uncured liverock for £5 with a fixed delivery fee of £15, so for my 14 kilos, that would be a £57.80 saving. Considering I am soon to be starting University, that is a considerable saving on my tight budget. Only issue, I can't find the website for it, and the customer no longer comes in regularly

I am not bothered about whether or not it is cured, as this is for a new tank, thus I can cure it myself if this saves me money. It's tanken me about 8 weeks to this point, so whats another 4 realy

Thanks all
Rabbut

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I never found any cheaper then what you get it for with a discount Only other place to look is ebay and aquatics classifieds to try and find someone who is breaking down their tank and wants to get rid of it quick.

Any chance you could PM the link for the online uncured rock if you find it/have it?

 

[Colin_T]

I get my base rock from the beach and then buy a few nice pieces of tropical live rock to go on top

 

[@ombomb]

you can get some good bargains on ebay, i bought 25kg for about £90 recently

 

[ben1987]

pm'd you where i got mine from

 

[garybuk]

pm'd you where i got mine from

Why you pm it? and not share it with everyone!

 

[ben1987]

pm'd you where i got mine from

Why you pm it? and not share it with everyone!

it would have broken the house rules!

 

[andywg]

You can always make your own base rock and then you need half as much LR. All you require is some portland cement (or any other cement that you have to add sand to) and crushed oyster shell. I saved a fortune on some large pieces like that.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

You can always make your own base rock and then you need half as much LR. All you require is some portland cement (or any other cement that you have to add sand to) and crushed oyster shell. I saved a fortune on some large pieces like that.

I remember reading about doing that awhile ago, good way to make unique pieces too. Do you need to "cure" it for a certain amount of time first to let everything leech out or was that another method I'm thinking of?

To answer my own question, instructions on what to do:
http/www.reefs.org/library/talklog/t_miller_052498.html

 

[rabbut]

OK, thanks guys. Have been trying Google Shopping and Ebay alot before calling back in here. Ben's PM will be my next port of call after an ebay auction, but as pointed out the contents of the pm can't go on the forum, due to certain link ground rules

Making my own rock sounds interesting, but is it realy easy to do without making a mess? I presume the cement needs to be fairly dry to ensure it holds shape while curing? That may be an idea that I need to play with later....

Thanks again
Rabbut

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Never done it before so really dont know. I will try and find some pictures of a tank that used it though. They also used reef safe PVC pipe and melted/bent it up then covered it in concrete to make some really good shapes.

 

[andywg]

IT's easy enough. You will need a bowl or bucket to mix the cement in. For more extravagent shapes you need to add sand to the mix for strength. Just mix crushed oyster shell and cement in a 5:1 ratio with enough water to make it like cottage cheese. Then leave it to set in sand for 24 hours or so. After this throw it in the cistern of your toilet for 4 weeks so that it gets constant changes of water and the ability of it to put the pH in double figures is dealt with (if it is too big or you have chemicals in teh cistern then you can put it in a tub of water that you change every few days - you wnat it so that the pH of the tap water doesn't get pushed up above 8 after a day or so).

After that you have perfect base rock. I made a "table" with a flat piece on 4 "legs" to provide a good hiding place for my eels.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

aye, hunting on aquarist classifieds is a good bet we've found.