Concrete blocks

[Mr.Diggler]

Have any of you used concrete as LR? Been toying with the idea in the future for an eel tank. It would be a good way to trim some of the cost and use three or so blocks to make a cool cave. What say you?

 

[bojangles93]

I would think that there would be some sort of leaching of chemicals into the water, but someone may chime in and refute that.

 

[Northstar24]

I beleive what he is talking about is this, and you can find the recipie many different places

Aragocrete.org live rock making at home

 

[bojangles93]

I thought that he was talking about using cinder blocks, which I dont think is a good idea. If making your own with the aragocrete method then it would work.

 

[BL1]

You can used regular concrete for the rock structures. the only problem with it is that it takes a lot of water changes and time to cure it. Concrete has a naturally high pH to it (by high I mean pH over 12-14 on our test kits).
There was a build thread on another forum where someone built a 1000g tank and used all concrete to make his rocks and it took him almost two months to bring the pH low enough (between water changes and hydrochloric acid) to start cycling the tank.

 

[wontonflip]

I've made my own aragocrete rocks (GARF rocks)...and I do cure it for 2-4 months after it's hard. It is a cheap alternative. If you have the patience, you should just make your own. My garf rocks have been in the tank a few months, and you can't tell that it wasn't a regular old rock from the ocean.

But like Brian said, if you use concrete, you should cure it for a few months just like I cured my rocks.

 

[Mr.Diggler]

Thanks for all of the input. :wave:

 

[Mr.Diggler]

I found a interesting web page.
About.com: http://www.athiel.com/lib3/arago.htm