Man Made Live Rock poll?

[blacknife]

I made some 2 months ago... tried to make it pretty b ut its still ugly.. and heavier than what i was planing. and the ph still has not stabilized.

i think if it ever stabilizes it will go in my sump but for the DT i vote real thing only.

[Cliff]

I feel the same way as you blacknife. I actually looked into this two months ago. I just thought I would end up with a bunch of different looking / styles of rocks. I was also worried about the longterm effects of the cement in my tank.

[Dez]

I feel that they have their uses. I have a bunch of cement in my tank. I have made some man made rock for the purposes of hiding large "Y' fittings and nozzles in my aquarium. I feel that it looks more natural than seeing piping in the aquarium. Many people that have come over and have seen the rock in person has been fairly impressed as you can't tell the difference once you have the variety of stuff grown and living on it. I have seen no negative effects in 15 months. After all, frag plugs are man made rock. They have all been encrusted over and hidden not in my aquarium.

[BlueTang<3]

Originally Posted by Dez

I feel that they have their uses. I have a bunch of cement in my tank. I have made some man made rock for the purposes of hiding large "Y' fittings and nozzles in my aquarium. I feel that it looks more natural than seeing piping in the aquarium. Many people that have come over and have seen the rock in person has been fairly impressed as you can't tell the difference once you have the variety of stuff grown and living on it. I have seen no negative effects in 15 months. After all, frag plugs are man made rock. They have all been encrusted over and hidden not in my aquarium.

I will go with Dez on this I never even noticed his mad made rock in his tank he did a great job of it. As for the frag plugs I make all my own plugs now. The only thing to worry about is phosphates leaching out.

[blacknife]

Mine might look ok once i get it in the tank but i change the water in the bucket of rocks every few days and the ph is off the chart on my hot tub test strips im using... although it has started to slow down.

I am sure most of the commercial products come pre-cured. I would also consider trying again but with perlite in the mix as well to increase the porosity and lighten it up a bit.

And dez's outputs do look pretty natural.

[lastlight]

I was mostly referring to a tank full of the stuff. I think Dez mostly has live rock and just made some fancy cement covers for his closed loop. His was very well done and yes his tank looks incredible.

[Rymah]

when i have the time to set up my pico im acctualy going to try some.. i found
http://www.cerameco.com/

and they seem pretty legit. from what ive herd from people that acutally have bought from them they acctually work..

plus they have some awesome designs... i hate aquascapeing...

its deffinatly not cheaper though... its basically base rock when you get it and you have to seed/cure it yourself.. i was quoted 150-200$ for 30 lbs.

[Aquattro]

I think it's selling yourself short for long term aesthetics of the tank. You can buy dry rock fairly cheap and even used live rock at a decent price. I'll have a bunch of rock that I'm selling shortly for $3/pound, just because it doesn't fit in with my landscaping. For that kind of price, why bother with a bunch of cement and the work involved making it?

[donlite]

I purchased some from down east. I paid for the the more expensive ones with lots of live coral on them. They said it would be ok to ship to calgary via post. I paid about 150.00$. When I opened the box there was very little coral on it and it was all dead. It looked nothing like on the web site. Win some lose some, Don

[mark]

depends on the type/maker. Seem some DIY that looks great, other that look like total cr*p.

If buying though (not trying DIY) for the price would say look for true LR or LR that has dried out for sale.