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Rock wall backing

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Anonymous

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There have been a lot of people asking about this lately and though I'm not one to have any real answers it seems to me the simplest solution is to employ the use of "garf rocks" to create a "rock wall" backing.

I'm fairly confident this isn't whats being used in some of the larger tanks like what was linked in this thread: http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=54161

And more directly, whats shown in these pictures:
Hai-Aquarium41_gross.jpg


meerwasser-aquarium-austritt_gross.jpg


But it seems to me that if you simply get a bit creative in the shaping / forming of your own "made" rock that you could get the benefit of not only the look but also the biological functions of liverock by doing it up with that over some sort of poly foam or whatever..

I don't see any reason at all why you wouldn't be able to make that stuff out of thinly crafted "garf rock".. - AND be able to make it so you can hide pumps/powerheads inside it.. (just think: threaded or even unthreaded acrylic rod to "snap" parts in and out as needed...)

However, I do know of a somewhat local contact that appeared to be using something similar to this material to hide a tunze stream in a store display tank. - I'll try to get more info from the store owner and will update if I can learn anything...
 
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The_Jackel

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These "fake" rock walls are actually very easy to do. I took some of that "sealer in a can" the stuff they sell that expands like 20 times it's volume for filling cracks in walls and sprayed in onto an old aquarium backing. I created "rock" shapes and 3-D effects (caves, shelves and such) and using a scraper molded it then painted it. After it set I filled the tank with salt water and let it cure for a month (being paranoid of toxins)...now after about a year it is completely covered in coralline algae and most casual lookers can't tell it is fake and not real rock.

It works great for secondary tanks or QT tanks where you are trying to keep the expenses down.
 
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Anonymous

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ricky1414":1rnxow4q said:
Hey diver, how many water changes would be needed to properly cure that manmade GARF rock?
Click to expand...
From everything I've read/heard, changes could number anywhere from 2 to 2000 depending on how you choose to go about it.

But if your point was that you can't just slap the stuff together and drop it in, yeah, thats definitely true... ;)
 
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Anonymous

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So far all I've been able to get is that the Tunze covers are made by a French outfit.. - Will update if / when I get more info..
 
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Anonymous

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Yeah, got that too but no details on the exact composition..

Would unglazed ceramic have the same benefits as made rock? - Or would unglazed potentially leech metals?
 
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ricky1414

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Depends on if the kiln's temperature used to fire the ceramic was high enough to burn off the metal compounds in the material. What is the actual metallic composition of ceramic?
 
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liquid

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It's unglazed. Glazing would serve no benefit as it would completely seal the block up. I'm not sure what the composition is to be honest. I took two ceramics classes while in college and most of those were pretty heavy in iron content in the ceramic. However, there are a lot of base materials that you can choose from that would negate this. I'm sure they have their own proprietary formula...

Shane
 
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keethrax

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GratefulDiver":1pzzme7h said:
I think there are probably several thousand if not hundreds of millions of different possible compositions of "ceramic", some including a multitude of metallic compounds, but the general (or traditional) definition of "ceramic" implies that its essentially composed of non-metallic compounds so go figure.. :?

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?b ... va=ceramic

http://www.uspto.gov/go/classification/ ... efs501.htm
Click to expand...

That just says it's made form clay more or less. The clay from many/most places has a pretty good metal content. Often Iron and/or aluminum. In planted aquarium's the iron's a bonus, and aluminum's a problem. (roughtly).
 
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