questions about making live rock

[buffett]

ok so ive read through the post about making live rock and went to garf and read some things too and im kinda confused as to the sand, ive read use play sand for the mold and then ive read that some are useing aragocrete for the molds and then ive read that different people used Aragonite Sand in their mix as well, as of now i just have some crushed coral and im getting a bag of portland cement soon but im waiting for any info that you guys can provide me to point me in the right direction on the sand do i need it to put it in my rock mixture or can i just use the crushed coral and the portland cement and play sand as my mold?
any help you all can provide me with will be really appreaciated.
thank you ^^

 

[thegrog]

If you ask 100 people who have done this, you may get 100 different answers.
I have used play sand for molds without any problems whatsoever. I would NOT use playsand in the mix.
Crushed coral and portland would work just fine with playsand as the mold. If you want to be 100% sure, you can use aragonite for the molding.
Here is one other idea. Make your mold out of play sand, then coat the sand with CC, then put in your cement mix. That way, you get CC forming an outside shell of the new rocks. Did this with crushed oyster shells and the look was really nice!
Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[brandan]

I was interested in making one or two decent size pieces for my nanoreef setup Im making, does anyone have any pics of the rocks they have made, and any advice for a newb rock maker. . .

 

[bellanavis]

If you check out the very large post about making LR, all your questions will be answered, and you will also find lots of pictures.

 

[teresaq]

here is a picture. but it hard to see the man made rock its covered in corals
the rock on the very top with the little green zoos and the other picture with all the zoos and shroom. the first picture - the rock is circle shape with a big cave in the middle.

 

[bellanavis]

Very nice Teresa, thanks for the picture!!

 

[buffett]

from what ive read from this forum is that a minimum of 6 weeks from start to finish for one rock correct?
on garf they said 24 hr cure time then dip it in vinergar, i was wondering if any of you guys had any better info on roughly how long i should cure them in water and just any helpful info would be nice
im gonna read through the forums one more time and make some notes this time, i hate asking for help lol

 

[ncprowler]

Here is a pic of my tank with some DIY rock I just used portland cement from home depot and used playsand as my mold. I didn't use any crushed coral or oyster shells. I really liked the way that I could make the rock look the way I wanted it to. Now I have had my tank going for about 3 months and you can see that I am getting coraline algae on there.
Asking about how long its going to take to cure it. I wouldn't trust the 24 hour thing. The PH of the cement take a long time to get to a safe level that you can put it in your fish tank. I believe I had mine in water for about 9 or 10 weeks. I did it while I was preparing everything for my tank. I would do a water change once a week and would continually test the PH every week and finally one week one batch was a 7.0 and the other was around 7.4. That let me know that I was ready to start my fish tank.
So take your time with this and you will be very pleased with your outcome. If you rush and put it in your tank to soon it could probably end up being a big mistake. I hope this helps!

This is before I added most of my stuff