Do DIY Rocks Rock? Have you ever made your own reef rock?

[Peace River]

With all of the options for rocks in your reef tank, have you ever made your own or thought about it? How did you go about making the rocks? Any tips, suggestions, or things to avoid? If you haven't made rocks for your reef tank, why not? Join the discussion below to share your thoughts on DIY rocks.

There are sooo many aquascaping rock options such as aquacultured rocks from places like Tampa Bay Saltwater, as well as other rock options from CaribSea, MarcoRocks, Two Little Fishes STAX Rock, CoraRoc, and many more. However, there are also DIY options!!! If you think this is a terrible idea, then feel free to (kindly) let us know why in the discussion below.

Photo by @tbrown3589

If you are interested in learning more about DIY rocks, here are some related R2R articles:

Build your own rock for practically free

Make your own rock When the hobby started there was no live rock for sale, as a matter of fact, there wasn’t even dead rock for sale. We used dead, white bleached pieces of coral to decorate our tanks and we bought that in a furniture store...

www.reef2reef.com

Aragocrete: DIY Live Rock

Live rock is often harvested from the ocean, which leaves a void in the once full reef. A few pounds is not going to effect the ecosystem, but when a few thousand people set up a few thousand gallons worth of water it starts to add up. That can...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Dan_P]

With all of the options for rocks in your reef tank, have you ever made your own or thought about it? How did you go about making the rocks? Any tips, suggestions, or things to avoid? If you haven't made rocks for your reef tank, why not? Join the discussion below to share your thoughts on DIY rocks.

There are sooo many aquascaping rock options such as aquacultured rocks from places like Tampa Bay Saltwater, as well as other rock options from CaribSea, MarcoRocks, Two Little Fishes STAX Rock, CoraRoc, and many more. However, there are also DIY options!!! If you think this is a terrible idea, then feel free to (kindly) let us know why in the discussion below.

View attachment 2844523
Photo by @tbrown3589

If you are interested in learning more about DIY rocks, here are some related R2R articles:

Build your own rock for practically free

Make your own rock When the hobby started there was no live rock for sale, as a matter of fact, there wasn’t even dead rock for sale. We used dead, white bleached pieces of coral to decorate our tanks and we bought that in a furniture store...

www.reef2reef.com

Aragocrete: DIY Live Rock

Live rock is often harvested from the ocean, which leaves a void in the once full reef. A few pounds is not going to effect the ecosystem, but when a few thousand people set up a few thousand gallons worth of water it starts to add up. That can...

www.reef2reef.com

After reading the two articles, I feel like going to my garage workshop and making rocks. Looks easy and fun.

 

[G Santana]

I am contemplating making a few small dome shaped DIY rocks to house individual zoa colonies. I love the way that looks. Small bursts of color on a dome.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

It looks like a fun way to immerse yourself in the hobby but I'm a wild ocean live rock type of guy myself so if I did make some diy rock I'd also use plenty of live ocean rock as well...again, maybe I'll try it...

 

[radiata]

Yes, way back when. It was a disaster. I was trying to make simple rocks to mount my GSPs on for credit at my LFS. I went back to using oyster shells from a local Chinese seafood restaurant.​

 

[ZoWhat]

Well about 8 billion years ago I took some molten lava as the earth was cooling and made some pretty awesomely shaped LR in my garage.

 

[Labridaedicted]

I made a few big pieces of aragacrete in an old system and it worked alright. It's time consuming to make and super dense for the size of it, but pest free and per lb cheaper than most natural rock.

Basically you take concrete and various sizes of aragonite sand and mix in coarse rock salt. Then pour into a mold of packed play sand lined with aragonite sand. Let cure. Then take the whole thing out in a brute can and you let it soak in ro water for several weeks changing the water somewhat frequently while you wait for the phosphates to leach out (you'll be testing phosphates every couple of days in this process) after the phosphates drop low enough (and the rock salt should have also dissolved by this point) you'll be left with aragrocrete rock. Worked well enough, but again, super dense and not as Porous as natural rock, but made to the exact shape you want.

Would I use it again? Probably not. It's time consuming and doesn't look quite as natural. I've found that using dry mined rock and E-Marco with epoxy I can make a close enough shape to what I want without all the extra work.

 

[Dburr1014]

Back in the day we used Portland cement and oyster shells. Fast forward, don't use oyster shells, they leach po4. It's good to have some I guess, but not to many.
It's also nice to have a stream in your backyard for curing for 2 months.

 

[sculpin01]

If you can find “low alkali” Portland cement, it will supposedly speed up your cure time significantly.

BTW, if your tank runs a low pH, you can raise it with partially cured aragocrete (made with normal Portland cement). Just make small (baseball sized) structures and add as many as it takes to bump your pH. I have done this and it works.