Julienlore

Greetings,

When I first purchased m 20 Gallon aquarium, I wanted to have a Marine environment. After reading a bit and talking to a local fish store, I decided to wait until I had a larger tank. My 20 is now cycling and I will soon start stocking my freshwater fish.

However, I am still interested in a Marine reef aquarium. I am a hobbyist at heart, and prefer building everything I own when possible. I am currently looking into building a 60 Gallon tank and have scored some materials already (plate glass, silicone).

Part of what kept me from jumping into the Marine setup was the price of the live rock. After reading a bit about it, I saw a few websites that mention culturing your own live rock? This is a long term project of mine and would like to start once my tank is built.

What are the basics of a DIY live rock? Is this much cheaper? Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks,

Julien

bhcaaron

I have read about making porous rock out of cement. It was an article in DIY network, i think. However, they put it in for monts or little over a year in a tank with mature live rock so that the bacteria cultures will start growing on it. The only other one's I've hear of are companies who take rocks deep in the ocean where they have beds of live rock (like a farm thing). The result is the same. They wait for months for the bacteria to attach and grown on the rock.