Man Made LR?

[blennybabe]

I have getten some information on how to make and cure your own live rock from cement and aragonite or crushed coral. Have any of you tried this? What problems has it caused? I would like to create my own for the 75 gallon tank I am going to start. If anyone is interested, I found the bulk of my information on this site:
<a href="http://saltaquarium.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities.com%2FCapeCanaveral%2FHangar%2F6279%2FRaiseCementRock.html" target="_blank">http://saltaquarium.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities.com%2FCapeCanaveral%2FHangar%2F6279%2FRaiseCementRock.html</a>

 

[vanlerdarklight]

also go to
<a href="http://www.garf.org" target="_blank">Garf</a>
they have lots of info on making aragocrete

 

[fshhub]

if you do this be very careful to fully cure it before adding it to your tank, first you need to put it in fw for a couple of weeks, just so the minerals cann leech out of it, minerals taht can really harm a sw tank, then you need to cure it in sw for a couple more weeks, this is something taht really needs to be done

 

[vanlerdarklight]

ya correct me if i am wrong its been awhile since reading about this stuff but i think concrete release Lime into the water and i think the full cure time should be atleast 2 months but i would push more towards 3

 

[rockster]

Lime, by definition is calcium carbonate...an essential mineral in the SW tank. The problem in cement is that it is released in large amounts if not allowed to leach first in fresh water.

 

[kris walker]

Don't know if this also leaches into water, but cement has a lot of heavy metal in it like chromium (or at least some do).
kris