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#51
10/27/2006, 11:03 AM
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Wont it just stick to the sheet pans too? I havent done that but i would only imagine... The reason people are using the sand and rock is because it will stick to them, but they can easily pick it up and the salt will evaporate or the sand will just flake off or be there (not sure, i didnt use sand) Maybe you should just consider sand since you dont care about the flat bottom and you wont be risking your time in the rock and the cookie sheet as well? Just a thought but im sure i will be corrected by one of these !Q of 150 guys lol
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#52
10/27/2006, 11:34 AM
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I just figured sheet pans would be cleaner than sand, not that it matters too much. Sand would be pretty easy. Maybe I'll mix another batch this weekend...anything to postpone rebuilding my sump.
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Curator of the North Point Marine Aquarium & Bar |
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#53
10/27/2006, 11:50 AM
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It doesn't stick to the sheet pans. If you use Wax Paper, make sure that you have the wax side up. I made the mistake of the wax side down, and it stuck to the rocks.
FWIW, many people dose Aluminum in their reefs. You might want to pry around for some information on it and see if it something that you would like to do 
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Travis Stevens |
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#54
10/27/2006, 02:59 PM
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Aluminium is a toxic metal and souldn't be added to a reef aquarium.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...y2003/chem.htm You need to get that out of the rock before you use it. |
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#56
10/29/2006, 10:55 AM
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Quote:
A latex fortifier is something I've tried the last couple times and it is now an essential IMO. You get very little crumbling and reduced excess alkalinity to neutralize or to leach away. |
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#57
10/30/2006, 10:12 AM
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Interesting. Tell us more about that, Red Algae
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Travis Stevens |
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#58
10/30/2006, 12:29 PM
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http://www.packagepavement.com/concrete_addons.html It seems like you can make lighter thinner rocks with finer surface detail by adding this, and the pH neutralization time is much better. I put about 50# in a 100 gallons of rainwater this summer and it was useable within two weeks. The fw plants and algae in the half filled 175 vat may have had some helpful effect, maybe. |
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#59
10/30/2006, 01:24 PM
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Cool. How much does it run in your area, and how much rock does it help make?
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Travis Stevens |
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#60
10/30/2006, 09:24 PM
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WOW.....43 pages!! What a read!!!
 I am inspired, and will be at Home Depot when they open tomorrow!! Thanks to all for your experiments and postings! 
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#63
10/30/2006, 11:31 PM
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#64
10/31/2006, 02:21 AM
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Rhodophyta, quick question if you may. In the hyperlink you provided for latex forifyers, I could only find a product that is an acrylic fortifyer. Same thing? Do you use this product in the mixture before you form the rocks or do you seal the rocks after they've hardened?
I've been trying to Kure my DIY rocks for 8 weeks now and the pH is still very high. There's so many pages to this thread. I think I've read somewhere that someone added vinegar to the water to kure it or did I imagine that?
__________________
"All that I know is that I know nothing"... Socrates parameters: 78-79F alk 7dKH sg 1.026 pH 8.2 phosphate 0 ammonia 0 nitrate 0 calcium 400 |
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#65
10/31/2006, 06:53 AM
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also so i make sure i did everything correctly, i mixxed my rocks, formed them, let them sit for 48+ hours, put them im a batch of water. and change the water about everyother day.. do i need a period of them being dry at all ( after the inital 48 hours? )
or just wait till my water tests come back normal? |
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#66
10/31/2006, 06:56 AM
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Old aquarium water seems to be a good choice to clean the rocks. The more mulm the better. After you have leached or neutralized the rock for a while, you can add old aquarium water, and then add plain household ammonia. Once the ammonia has all converted to nitrate, rinse them off with more old aquarium water, and test them again before use. The ammonia does not clean the rock but it does encourage the growth of thigmotrophic bacteria, the good ones we want anyway. They seal off the rock and naturalize it. |
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#67
10/31/2006, 07:05 AM
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#68
10/31/2006, 08:47 AM
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Zestay, in simple terms, yes. Curing is the act of hardening the rock. Kuring, like Rhodophyta has stated, is just something used in this thread to alleviate confusion since the process of decreasing the pH was also called Curing. So, instead, the act of the rock becoming stronger is Curing and the act of decreasing the pH is called Kuring.
Now, the process of Cured and Uncured live rock is the act of "uncured" rock that has die off and organic decomposition to give the bacterial population a chance to catch up. I have even occassionally heard the act of making base rock/DIY rock into live rock Curing, too. But I normally just call it aquaculturing 
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Travis Stevens |
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#69
10/31/2006, 11:02 AM
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This may sound strange, but I’ve actually used this stuff before and it did appear to help a lot and it is cheaper than dirt. It’s called ‘Right Now Bacteria’ made by Hiatt Distributors Limited Products www.hdltd.com
Right Now Bacteria Page: http://www.hdltd.com/products/p_rightnow.html My idea was to use this product to ‘help colonize’ the DIY Rock with bacteria. This company does make almost unbelievable claims like “Right Now! Bacteria is a totally different way of addressing the Nitrogen Cycle. Instead of 28 days, following our protocol at 25oC, the Nitrogen Cycle will be established in one day every time”. I don’t know about all that, but it did truly help me with some problems I was having with my system when it was relatively new and I was very new to this hobby. It also helped a few others that I have previously suggested it to. After reading their site a bit this is my impression: Based on what they say about ‘how it works’ I assume that it would be necessary to use old tank water to bathe your rocks. I would run the water change water through a filter sock to get out any gunk first. The RN Bacteria supposedly requires some ammonia or fish in the rock holding tank in order for the bacteria process to begin. They say that the more surface area for bacterial to grow the better. Well a tub full of DIY Rock sounds like a lot of surface area to me. It’s worth reading into. They sell carbon for the intended use for maximum bacteria colonization many times used inside of a carbon tube (just a simple tube filled with carbon which water passes through). I don’t think that’s necessary. |
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#70
10/31/2006, 01:52 PM
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Queuring: RF conversion of the word for cement hardening. Kuring: cement leeching out salt and pH. Curing: rock growing bacteria for aquarium use.     Seriously, I'm ready to get started. My rocks will be the 2:1 mix as discussed, but I'm going to add whole oyster shells rather than crushed oyster. I'm creating an oyster reef and the blennies that I'm going to breed prefer to breed in clumps of oyster shells rather than loose ones laying on the bottom (yes, LOL, there actually was a study confirming this). I'm going to mix shells into the rock and then stick some on the outside to simulate live oysters. I may make a few rocks with mussel shells too. Should be fun. I'll post pics when I'm done. Gotta gather the materials first. The easy part is the stuff from the store, the oyster shells are a bit more difficult but I have some good leads 
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Blennies Rock! --Kevin Wilson |
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#71
10/31/2006, 05:43 PM
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Quote:
"kuring" = the cleaning of the cement. One part of cleaning is to neutralize excess alkalinity; the other part is to leach away excess alkalinity. The cleaning process transforms into "cycling". As the beneficial bacteria colonize the surface of the rock, they seal it up, and any sealed in calcium will have an opportunity to gradually bond chemically with the concrete making it harder and stronger over time. |
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#72
10/31/2006, 06:12 PM
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Rhodophyta
How much calcium chloride are you adding to your mix? I tried 200gm of flake mixed into 4 litres of water. I'm not sure if I couldn't have gone a bit more. Are you saying that holding off submerging the rock in water for a week will speed up the neutralizing process? |
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#73
10/31/2006, 09:41 PM
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Quote:
2. Yes. Yes. Yes. I was trying to say it clearly, but during that one week curing period, water molecules combine with the calcium compounds in the portland cement, recreating the molecules that were in the limestone the portland was made from (by having superheated it enough to drive out the H's and O's, releasing water). No amount of heat lower than kiln temperatures is able to drive out the water once it has chemically recombined. it is much harder to dissolve this reverted compound than to dissolve the unrecombined portland. But if you submerge the concrete early, you interfere with this chemical process, and instead of a strong concrete in which the calcium compounds are chemically bonded with water, you greatly increase the amount of alkalinity that has to be neutralized or leached away. I can't think of a perfect analogy, but if you've refinished furniture, it would be like not waiting for the shellac to dry before steel wooling it. Instead of just smoothing off the dry shellac imperfections with the steel wool, you'd gouge out swaths of wet shellac and clog the steel wool instantly. |
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#74
10/31/2006, 11:11 PM
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So just a recap for those who are following the evolution of the ultimate DIY rocks.
1. dry mix consists of cement/ rock salt (or Calcium Chloride)/ acryclic fortifyer 2. after shaping the rocks. Allow them to harden in a moist or humid environment for a week before soaking them in water 3. Once the pH neutralizes (in a couple of weeks) soak them in ammonia and old aquarium water to start the nitrogen cycle. 4. Once the ammonia is converted to nitrite then to nitrate, rince your rocks off and it should be safe to put in the the aquarium. do I have that right? i've been waiting for 2 months already for my first batch of rocks to stop raising the pH. this new method seems like it would cut the time in half.
__________________
"All that I know is that I know nothing"... Socrates parameters: 78-79F alk 7dKH sg 1.026 pH 8.2 phosphate 0 ammonia 0 nitrate 0 calcium 400 |
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#75
11/01/2006, 12:00 AM
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A quick update: I was able to move my rock, and it was quite solid after 24 hours. About 3 times faster than before without the added calcium chloride.
I am using: 3 parts sand 1 part crushed coral 1 part white cement 1 part rock salt water- 200gm calcium chloride to 4 litres of water |
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