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#26
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I'm not curing it by cooking it. I'm drying it by cooking it. The curing process is a good 4-6 weeks in water. So far, it's structural strength has been quite sound. It took a lot of work just to break that hunk of rock in half
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Travis Stevens |
#27
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Why are you drying it, just leave it outside. You mentioned that it takes a long time to dry, this is because you are evaporating the water inside the concrete. The concrete uses this water to hydrate.
I know a lot about concrete, I work with it every day. Baking it can lead to crazing, dusting and all types of problems. I typically use concrete in a structutal way, but it also applies here. If you are getting great strength now/density, you could do better if you cured it right. The best way to do it would be to set it outside and mist it for a few hours. Then throw it in a tub of water. Why did you stop using the oyster shells, I liked the texture it produced.
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If I knew keeping fish would be so hard, I would of had kids by now. |
#28
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Leaving it outside and misting isn't an option for me since I live in an apartment, and with two little kids, leaving it still wet inside is also not an option. Messy kids... So, just baking it solved the problem. Instead of taking 24 hours, two works for me. If you have the chance of not cooking it, go for it. But I don't. I doubt in the future that I will leave 100 lbs of wet rock lying around the apartment for 24 hours either since it seems to work fine for me
I stopped using the oyster shells because it looks too "unnatural" for my taste. And it is really sharp. When taking out a 10lb piece of rock afer having your hands in the tank for an extended amount of time makes it really easy to cut your skin. The Salt/Cement is very smoot, on the outside of course.
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Travis Stevens |
#29
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will an accelerator still leave the rock "reef safe"? What accelerator should be used or won't it matter? |
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#31
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As to putting the concrete in the oven, if it works for you, that is fine. For others following the thread, don't do it unless you have a strong reason too. The concrete would have be hard enough to handle in 4 hours and putting it in the oven only makes it weaker. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home...s/1275111.html Another experiment people following this thread can try is to make you rock and a few hours later dig into it with something hard to get a more unique shape. Then after a little wait, spray the rock with a preasure washer. This should clean the smooth concrete off the surface and expose the arrgagate below. This is how you pour the concrete you see that shows the pebbles inside of it, common on walk ways. It is called exposed aggregate concrete.
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If I knew keeping fish would be so hard, I would of had kids by now. |
#32
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I was wondering, after you make your mold and its sitting to dry, what if you threw some salt on it to make little indentions. Also, if this rock is so light and stuff, would any of it ever crush under the weight of other rock on top of it?
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55 Gallon freshwater |
#33
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I was wondering, after you make your mold and its sitting to dry, what if you threw some salt on it to make little indentions. Also, if this rock is so light and stuff, would any of it ever crush under the weight of other rock on top of it?
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55 Gallon freshwater |
#34
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So far, weight of other rock doesn't seem to effect it. This isn't testing it with very much. Maybe I should go home and stand on one. I'll let you know if it fails. Afterall, I weigh 250lbs and if only one rock can hold up that weight, then a large pile of rocks should be fine. But that is a great question.
As far as the indentions on the outside goes, I've thought about either molding my rocks in a bucket of rock salt similarly like you would with a bucket of sand. This way, you can wash of the rock salt incasement unlike sand molded DIY rock where it sticks to the outside. Also, the outside of the rock is already rather "bumpy" as it is. But I guess it's more of a personal preference.
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Travis Stevens |
#35
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How many shapes have you tried. I have the GARF style rock and have made all sorts of shapes. Plastic shopping bags make a great interior to artificial tonga style rock. You just mold around it and it holds branching shapes well.
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Thought For The Day.... "In the Torah it says "love thy neighbor as thy self". The Buddha says there is no "self". So maybe you are off the hook." |
#36
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Truthfully, I haven't tried to make very many shapes, I just wanted to make sure that it worked first. It has the same consistancy as any other DIY Rock, so I would venture to guess that you can make it into any shape that you want.
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Travis Stevens |
#37
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I ended up making some, and the problem is a few pieces float. Even some of the big pieces float. This confuses me, because it would seem the cement would be less dense with the water.
FWIW, the rocks have been curing for 1 month now.
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Icarus, what are you doing up there! Ave imperator! Morituri te salutant! |
#38
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Anyone thought of using PVC tubing for holes / crevices? wouldn't be to hard to mold around it and could make diffrent sizes fairly inexpencive.
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Stewie: Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. |
#39
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-nick
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"If you sqeeze me, I make bad people go away!" -Petey the Pistol |
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Travis Stevens |
#41
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Okay, The rocks look GREAT!!
I live in Las Vegas where the popular type of Portland Cement is Type V. My question is this: Does the cement 'type' make any difference in creating rocks? I understand that it needs to be 'portland', but does it have to be type I?? Thanks, W |
#42
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what about using say crushed coral to give more texture? Its fairly cheap compared to sand. You could also make rigs of say pvc rods or small pipes or such and mold around those. Then pull them out to create porous rocks, caves and holes.
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#43
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The Type does matter.... Gosh, forget where I read that, but.... the different types each have different curing materials, or rates, or... there's something about the type's out there (obviously). I don't know as it was anything that would affect your rock, however. There was some discussion way back when about different curing agents you could get, and some names of chemicals were tossed around (from folks in the Cement business, not me), but I can't even come close to remembering the particulars. Perhaps the search engine can tease it out?
- Mac |
#44
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For a reference point, if you go back to the First (or second, I can't remember) Batch where I used just Crushed Oyster Shell, a cheap alternative to Crushed Coral, and then look at the Third batch where I used Rock Salt, you can see a dramatic difference in porosity. The importance of the porosity isn't for looks. It's to help harbor more Denitrifying Bacteria to make it actually work like real live rock.
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Travis Stevens |
#45
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Thanks for the info regarding cement types. I will have to do some more research. W |
#46
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There was some type of additive you could put into the cement mix (or, buy type "___" Portland Cement, which already had it in there), to add stability in marine environments. But it really didn't matter to the end result all that much, IIRC (which is hopeful at best), because properly cured, the arragocrete should be equally inert, regardless of wether you used that fancy additive or not. I think it was some guy talking about marine grade cement used for pilings, and that sorta thing (might find it, or info about it, at a boat shop, if you happen to live near the coast). There was something they put in that type of cement, that changed the type #, and made it 'better' for marine environments.. but again, once cured, was moot.
Sorry, best me feeble mind can do at this level of inebriation. - Mac |
#47
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If anyone actually finds a link to it, either PM me or post it on thise thread. I would really like to read it and it would be good reference for anyone else reading this thread.
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Travis Stevens |
#48
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I have shaken rocks out and there is no air trapped inside. Anyway, I think in about a week they will be done (need to test pH), and I will either skewer them on some PVC or put them in mixed in with some LR. They are not very buoyant, enough to float them. As time goes on, the rocks sink more. Hmmm. I can only hope the higher density of saltwater doesn't affect the situation.
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Icarus, what are you doing up there! Ave imperator! Morituri te salutant! |
#49
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How large is the grain size of the salt your using? You could have a bunch of hollow pockets in the rock that's causing it to float. I made some yesterday and some today. I havent put yesterdays in the water yet. hope they dont float. the average size of the salt I used was probably 3/16 - 1/4"
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Gigas! Its whats for dinner! |
#50
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Travis Stevens |
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