A nice alternative for live rock ...

[Ice]

I found this in LiveAquaria.com and I think this is an awesome way to "go green" when looking for live rock : Fiji Aquacultured Live Rock. Here's the link :

http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_...fm?pCatId=2565

[TheOldSalt]

Ugh.

They make it sound like Aiptasia is the end of the world.

At least Florida rock doesn't have those planarians all over it! I'll take a few Apes over thousands of planarians ANY day. Florida rock is still mostly ALIVE, too.
Oh, well, whatever. Some people like fiji rock for some reason, so this'll make them happy.

[Ice]

LOL !! I thought that too !

[leveldrummer]

i think its funny that they make rock out of concrete, cure it in the ocean (which is very bad) once its populated for years, it becomes live rock, and they pull it out, how is that any different? its actually worse in my opinion, because they are dumping tons of uncured concrete into the sea.

[TheOldSalt]

Are they?

Most liverock farms don't use concrete, but instead use limestone or even fossilized coral. Concrete would make lousy liverock, since it's not porous enough or attractive, and of course there's the alkalinity problem which would add years to the process of turning it into live rock.

GARF is famous for it's aragocrete recipe, though, which could be confused with concrete. That's certainly not what the rockfarms are dumping in the sea, though.

Are any rockfarms really using concrete? I guess I wouldn't be totally surprised by it, but I can't imagine why they'd ever want to.

[vvolfe1]

I'd have to say that making concrete rocks is not to hard and done properly is just as good if not better than any live rock out of the ocean. I'll post picks tonight of some I've made tonight. The aquaculture stuff is pretty good. People can do better making their own I feel. Big plus for aquaculture though is the bio-diversity.

[CollegeReefer]

I plan on making my own rock throughout the school year for a future tank of mine.

[leveldrummer]

Originally Posted by liveaquaria

Fiji Cultured rock is man made pieces of rock made from aragonite, shells, and rubble that are fused together with concrete.

looks like concrete to me, lol, from what ive read about home made rock, they make it pourous by adding large chunks of rock salt, or something else that will disolve after the concrete sets up, and im not really sure, but ive also read about dripping it into water or something making the small round balls that are all fused together, ive seen some really good examples of concrete that looks amazingly just like fiji rock. but you have to cure it in water for i think around 3 or 4 months till the ph stabilizes, and then cycle it.

[CollegeReefer]

This is what garf makes there rock out of.

1. One bag of CaribSea Sea floor special grade aragonite sand.
2. One bag of CaribSea Aruba Shell aragonite Gravel.
3. One bag of White cement that is a low alkalinity type of cement.
At GARF we use Riverside white cement that cost about $22 per bag.
4. A small quantity - 2 or 3 cubic feet of plastic sawdust.
At GARF we use Plexiglas and Lexan drill shavings that we get free from a computer manufacturer.
5. One bucket of fresh water for mixing with the cement and one bucket of fresh water for washing your tools

they let it cure for about a month otherwise the ph would go sky high in the tank.
The plastic shavings are to help coraline algae growth.