Cheap Rock Alternative?

[Altohombre]

I've heard snowflake eels too and other fish.

[Vindicator]

I am going to look around today at some of the local plant nursery's here in Miami. Some of them sell HUGE chunks of coral rock for use in decorating gardens, could break those down into many cool pieces and shapes. If I manage to pick some up, ill post some pictures so you guys can take a look.

We will see!

[rbb302]

u should look on ebay this guy sells 50lb of rock for 107$ or 2.13 lb shiping is not to bad but i know how u fell i hate it to

[cgoodman381]

use craigslist. I got most of my rock for a buck a pound.

[fatman]

Just make sure you take a tupperware container partially filled with white vinegar with you. Throw a little piece of the rock in it. If it is carbonate based it will fizz like Alka Seltzer. If it does not fizz, find different rocks. Tank raised live rock will likely never be as good as good natural live rock. It would take years and poosibly the dead rock would still not develop the levels of denitrifying bacteria that normally comes with natural live rock. Even ocean maricultured rock is substandard to natural live rock in its denitrfying capacities. What also makes natural live rock so good potentially is the great diversity of life forms that come with, on and in it. Even though bacteria will grow on and in dead rock making it live rock, the diverse live forms still have to be imported if they are desired, and they do contribute greatly to the rocks appearance and some to its performance (IE. coraline). I like maricultured live rock better becai=use it has more life form living on it than imported live rock, I, however, mainly use base rock, as most of my rock can not even be seen as it is covered with corals. If I lived in Florida, or Utah I definitely would not even buy base rock from a retailer or supplier.

[Damseluver]

Back when I use to run large open sumps I would buy base rock from the local rip off artist.....err I mean LFS place it in the sump, light the sump with just shop lights and daylight compact fluorescent.

Any nuisance algae in the system would tend to grow here with the lower flow and favorable light spectrum keeping the dt free of it for the most part. Six months later after a little coraline and maybe a few feather dusters and such turned up on the base rock I would take it back and sell it to him as LR. Considering the quality of the LR he was selling for 8 bucks a pound IMO my fellow hobbyist were better off getting a piece of my "cultured" rock so I had no qualms in this regard either.

If I had the room I would still be running these sumps. Sometimes 75 gal sumps on 40 gal tanks. For nitrate export a remote DSB here in a tupper ware container could not be beat. Once a year I would just toss the lid back on the TW container, lift out the whole bed and clean or replace the sand.

[fatman]

............wow!

[devicore16]

visit garf.org they have instructions on how to build a naturally looking live rock out from cement and aragocrete. its a great site for improvises.. you'll learn that much.

[dustin_P74]

this thread is over two months old so i think they found something