Cheap Rock Alternative?

V

Vindicator

Reefing newb
Ok, I am spending money hehe, I know we all are when it comes to this hobby. But the one thing that I cannot justify spending money on is the live rock! No matter how many times I try to do it , I can't. It just drives me crazy how expensive this stuff is, FOR ROCK! I do not even want know how much they are going to charge me for shipping rock! LOL. Now I have a lot of time and patience, so I can wait for dead rock to become live, so I will justify buying a VERY small box of rock just to seed my tank. But iv been trying to come up with other ways to get cheap or free rock. I was going to make some myself out of cement and real rock and sand. But the question again is what rocks are safe in a tank? Is there anything I should make sure to avoid?

For example - I live in South Florida , about 1 mile from the ocean, and I was thinking to myself. Don't I live on top of one gigantic dead reef???? What If I just went to my backyard and dug up some rock, and let it cure for a month or something.

Let me know what you guys think. This rock thing is driving me nuts LoL :) :)
 
I hear you. My wife: "that pile of rocks cost how much?!!"

To save money do what I did: start out with less LR than you need but stock low. Add some good porous, coral rock and let it become LR in the tank. A month or two later, add some more cured LR till you get up to about 1 pound per G. But you really need it -its the best filtration system you can have. I found a lot of white dead, branch coral washed up on the shore near Naples and I am curing it as I write this.
 
If you use the cement made "aragocrete" it needs to be cured in tapwater for 6-8 weeks to make it PH neutral otherwise it will drop your PH to very low levels dangerous for anything in a reef tank. After the few things my dad has done for rock i would be cautious with base rock, if you get any base rock apply the same concept for the cement rock cure it for 6-8 weeks in tapwater doing a water change every day to make sure that it will not for one have any mud or other contaminants and to make it PH neutral if it is not. Also just as a precaution we took and set the rock in the sink and filled it with boiling water and let that sit for about enough time for more water to boil and went on to the next rock.

Sorry to make it seem like a bad idea but we did lose a few fish using the baserock our LFS sold. Just want to keep that from happening to other people.
 
my home made rock that i got from local reefer has to cure it for long time cause ingredient used with drive ph real high, matter of fact i still have to soak mine for 2 more weeks cause i did ph test on water and still a little high.
 
Well lucky for me I'm just setting up the tank now, nothing is in it. So when I do cure for awhile there will be no ill effects till I get everything right chem wise
 
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!
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 

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