Danno's Marine Journal

[Danno]

Well its a regular stock lighting, BUT, im just going FO atm. FOWLR it a bit to expensive for right now.

Im trying to get a 30 for the purpose of a 5-7 inch sand bed for a yellowhead jawfish. I love those fish.

Any suggestions on just setting up a FO?

 

[sammydee]

Make your own rock out of cement and oystershell and make it a fowlr?

 

[Danno]

Cement??!?!

I tihnk when i go live rock hunting ill have enough money

 

[Navarre]

Man made liverock is made with Cement, Aragonite sand and rocksalt (can be made of other similar products). Its very good stuff and many marine trade suppliers make huge batches and throw em in the sea for 6 months to mature and sell as real liverock.

 

[Danno]

Wow I never knew.....I guess ya learn something every day

But... How do you get all those cool looking pieces, or rather...how do mold cement?

Will man made live rock cure in a brand new tank?

 

[sammydee]

There's TONNES of info about making live rock with cement - you just gotta do a google search for "live rock cement oyster shell" or something similar. Oyster shell is used as a cheap alternative to aragonite sand - I think the rock works out about 20p per kilo (20cents a pound).

Two things I will say: DON'T PUT IT STRAIGHT IN YOUR TANK! It needs to be soaked for about six weeks to fully cure the cement otherwise it could push your pH up to 11 or 12 or even higher.

Secondly, one thing I learned - don't wash the oyster shell (or wash it then let it dry completely). It holds so much water you end up with a far too runny mix. You want about 4 cups oyster shell to 1 cup cement (add water until its barely solid enough to just stand up in a vague shape you mould it into.

It's really easy to make and sure does save on buying new live rock!

Hope I was helpful,
Sam

 

[chkltcow]

Go to http/www.garf.org/ and look at the how-to pages and movies about Aragocrete.

 

[Danno]

Since this is the first marine tank i will be making, would it be smarter to just buy the stuff ready for me so I dont mess something up, or should I do this and hope its salty newbie safe?

 

[Danno]

Don't mean to double post but I just wanted to change the name of the post beucase im going in tomarrow to pick up supplies. Im not going to set the tank up right away, but rather collect all of my equipment and then start.

 

[Navarre]

Personally i would get liverock rather than manmade. whilst its cost effective and will do the job, you simply wont have any life on the rock unless you seed it with the real thing. This means a rock that will filter yet no worms, pods, feather dusters, brittle stars etc.

 

[Danno]

Well when we went to the fish store yesterday we picked up:

- 25 watt heater
- 5 Gallon Bucket
- The biggest Bucket of salt avalible
- 75 watt heater
- Hydrometer
- Fluval 203 filter
- 2 Ehiem powerball powerheads


Since my parents dont let me buy much normally, this was like a shopping spree for me. It was so awsome