Tufa rock

[willjeff]

So I'm thinking about making a tower constructed with pvc and tufa rock. The thought being that tufa rock is cheap and has the hole already present to slide the pvc through.

The question is are there any negative aspects of putting the tufa rock in my established 90g reef.

[Coderabit2]

There are no negative aspects except that the tufa rock never becomes as "alive" as one from the ocean. Anthony Calfo mentions this in his book. Just make sure the tufa rock came from a repetable place so as not to get phosphates or heavy metals. If you need a hole drilled you can just buy a long drill bit. I've seen a few people in my local aquarium society do it without any problems.

[willjeff]

Thanks for the advice.

[anjhof]

I have several pieces of tufa rock in my set up and honestly I can't tell the difference within a couple of months from the other rock. Not sure about what Calfo talks about - although I am sure he is correct. Regardless though, if you only have part of your rocks as tufa rocks, you should be fine.

[m2434]

Originally posted by Coderabit2
tufa rock never becomes as "alive" as one from the ocean. Anthony Calfo mentions this in his book.

This comment seems absolutely nonsensical. The only reason I can think of would be the chemical composition, however "Live Rock" comes from a wide range of locations and I would not expect all live rock to be even remotely similar on an atomic level... The amount of life on my tufa after a few month is amazing! Unless he provides a legitimate explanation, I am inclined to believe he has fallen victim to urban myth (even experts are quite capable of this ).

[nsreefer]

Originally posted by anjhof
I have several pieces of tufa rock in my set up and honestly I can't tell the difference within a couple of months from the other rock. Not sure about what Calfo talks about - although I am sure he is correct. Regardless though, if you only have part of your rocks as tufa rocks, you should be fine.

I have had the same experience....

[willjeff]

Well if others have had success I think I will give it a go. Like I said my reef has been running for over 2 yrs, so it should be fine.

What I was planning was to rearrange some of the existing rock to place about a 10" tall pillar of the tufa rock/with a pvc spine attatched to a flat footed area to go under the sandbed. Probably go with some zoo's attatched to the pillar and something else on top of the mount.

This would be alot cooler with pictures, but I'm at work and day dreaming.

[willjeff]

My guess is to just rinse the tufa rock real well to get the dust and particulates out.

[dwd5813]

good guess, tufa rock that i have had before seemed like it was just dust being held together somehow. eventually i was able to rinse it out well enough, but it seemed like a lot of dust.

[Pmolan]

I had tufa in my fowlr. My puffer and triggers used to take bites out of it to keep thier teeth sharp. It lasted about a year before it started falling apart.