DIY Live Rock

[divedeep1689]

lol it dont get that cold

[cabezon]

great writeup and links. Here's a question: What about tossing the homemade stuff under a bridge for a few months? One of the benefits of living near salt water?

[divedeep1689]

sounds like a idea to me cabezon if your area is not very tropical tho it might not get the coraline on it like you might be thinking but it would def seed it...... The georgia atlanta aquarium did wat your talking about i belive they took thier rocks to figi and set them next to a reef for thier tanks...

[DeepThought]

Hi,

Earlier in the thread there was talk of making things lighter - it reminded me of the pantheon - Roman engineers needed the concrete to be light so they used pumice as aggregate leading to a very light yet strong dome almost 1900 + years old and still standing strong.

Nowadays they do the same job with a detergent and create a foam which is mixed with the concrete to make it very light and porous concrete.

While the latter is probably outside the scope of DIY the pumice might work.

A

[divedeep1689]

wat exactly is pumice sorry i have never heard of it.... i will be google it in a second but like always remember this is going in your tank not a ancient building it could have some effect on your water and aquatic life....well i did google it i see that some people use pumice volcano rock in thier tanks so i dont guess it would hurt anything to use but do your research first tho it sounds like i dont have to tell you that you sound like you already do that very well!! A+ on the history report!!!!

[DeepThought]

I'm no vulcanoligist (no nothing to do with Startrek ) but IIRC the pumice is formed at the start of the eruption when the molten lava is under pressure and the gasses and steam expand inside the liquid rock and if it cools quickly enough they get trapped giving it a sponge like structure.

Visualise what would happen if you were to shake a cola and open it - if you could freeze it at that moment you'd have a cola version of pumice.

Some is light enough to actually float

It's very easy to work and has good porosity.

A

[mfdrookie516]

the only problem i would envision with using pumice would be the same as using lava rock... not sure if pumice has the same chemical compound as lava rock, but i know that there is alot of iron that can rust, and rust is never a good thing. It would be interesting to find out though

[DeepThought]

Each eruption will be different and the composition of the lava (and pumice) will contain different minerals.

That said most pumice will be ancient and anything soluble will already have been leached out. Most of my experience is freshwater and I used to test rock was inert using a little strong acid to see if there was signs of leaching.

A

[fishmonkey]

hmm, from what I have heard, lava rock is a big no no because of the metals in it. if pumice is related to lava rock, then in my opinion, I wouldnt chance it...