GARF's "Bullet Proof Reef" Anyone?
 

Hello everyone,

I was cruising around the net a couple of months ago and came across the GARF site. There were some interesting DIY articles, some great pictures and a whole whack of other things. One page that caught my attention was Sally Joes "Bullets Proof Reef". Seems like an interesting idea building a reef tank with artificial rock, and being able to start stocking the tank in less than a week of cycling. I was wondering if anyone on canreef had attempted the Bullet Proof method? If so how were the results?

Thanks!
Debate away :mrgreen:

i heard of a few people making rock anf frag plugs the same way. just have to make sure that you have the formula correct other wise you could have a mess on your hands. nitrate, PO4, spikes etc.
if i am incorrect, please correct me.

I could see that, things leaching off into the water.

I looked at that web site a couple of years ago. There was an article in there about making your own rock pieces but it said that there was a long period of curing and water changes before the concrete stopped leaching. The plus side is that you can make the pieces to whatever shape and size that you need.

with home made rock, your looking at 1 to 2 months min of daily freshwater waterchanges to nutralize the cement. basicly you have to keep testing PH of the water and change it and repete untill it doesn't change for q week or two. then it needs the week in salt water to cycle the tank, not as quick as it sounds.

buying good cured live rock is more expensive but a lot faster, and if it is cured right you will have a cycleless instant take ready for critters. while I have done it this way it is not something I recomend. in my case the rock was from a well established tank and was out of water for 45 min total, and the whole time it was in boxes covered with wet newspaper. I did try to cycle it but I couldn't put nuf crap in it to get any readings. hence the instant cycle, because of the already fully populated and intact bacteria population in the rock.

I was looking into home made rock for years and still am but I haven't seen any real long term reports about algae issues or lack of so I am still reading.

Steve

I have tried making aragocrete and one problem I ran into is that the rock is leaching a lot of silicates into the tank which drives diatom blooming. How long it will take to get rid of the silicates I do not know. I suspect that with different cement you could reduce that problem somewhat? Anyway I pulled that rock out once I figured out what was happening and am still soaking it, maybe in a few months the silicate leaching will calm down.

At Garf they just drive the tank straight through the diatom bloom and they are displaced by green algae. But I get the feeling that some cement releases more silicate than others..?

BTW, I just used aragonite sand and cement so the problem is not from a regular silica sand in the mix.

As far as I know there is no Silica in Cement..

I think in most cement mixes there is silica....like around 0.5-1%?

Here follows a little excerpt from here: http://www.azom.com/details.asp?articleID=1317

>>>>>When water is mixed with Portland cement a complicated set of reactions is initiated. The main strength giving compounds are the calcium silicates which react with water to produce a calcium silicate hydrate gel (C-S-H gel) which provides the strength, and calcium hydroxide which contributes to the alkalinity of the cement. Tricalcium silicate reacts quickly to provide high, early strengths while the reaction of dicalcium silicate is far slower, continuing, in some cases, for many years. The other cement compound of particular relevance to steel reinforced concrete is tricalcium aluminate. It reacts rapidly with water to produce calcium aluminate hydrates.<<<<