Hi Gang,
The deal is with searches is that any registered member can do a search. You ability to search does increase if you are a contributing member, Team RC, Mod, Staff etc. but only during peak times when the server is highly loaded.
The RC staff keeps working on improving things but with the phenominal growth of RC it is a neverending story (and WK does not contribute to this effort).
I only do some heavy researches after 3 A.M. when only the Aussies are on-line.
mderemick,
Sure you can make your own LR it just takes some time. Making the rock is the easy part. Basically you get some Portland cement, a mix of aragonite sand and maybe some crushed coral. I think the ratio is one part cement to 2 or 3 parts of the aragonite and CC. You then make a mold where you have a base of aragonite and CC, scoop out the shape you want, pour in the CC, aragonite mortar and let it cure.
You then soak it in FW water for a couple of weeks, with frequent water changes, until you leach out any harmful components from your manmade rock.
Now comes the long part. This rock is "dead rock" and you need to seed it some way. If you have an active tank already just take some pieces of rock frags and add them to a saltwater rock culture tank. Otherwise buy some LR to act as seed. The culture tank needs lighting and good circulation. Ten to twenty percent weekly water changes are in order but use water taken from your main tank, if you have one, when you change it to replace the water in your culture tank.
After about 4 - 6 months you should have well established coralline and other critters growing on your fake rock. Try to get a seed rock that is diverse it what is living on it.
There are various recipes for making the rock so look around for one you like.