artificial reef

[SaVeThEeELs]

anyone keep an compleatly artificial reef??
started w/ dry rock (limestone ect) and seeded it?
or even plastic or glass??

[sir_dudeguy]

what do you mean by artificial? do you mean like those plastic rocks and corals? If so, that wouldnt be a reef...just a FO tank.
and what do you mean by plastic or glass?

[drummereef]

:confused:

[Shagsbeard]

The plastic deco that looks like live rock doesn't have the porous nature of real live rock. There's no place for critters or bacteria to hide. It might look like the real thing, but when it comes down to it... it's a hunk of plastic.

This is not the same as man made live rock... lots of DYIers make their own rock out of a mix of concrete and rock salt. They leach out the rock salt (usually in a creek or river) leaving behind a very pourus lump of concrete that works really well as base rock in a tank.

[SaVeThEeELs]

no no no............


dry lime stone from a quarry or a specific region
oor
glass
or
plastic.......
i know coraline will grow on all 3 no problem...
i dont recomend throwing just any ole lime stone in.....perferably sea shore/ rock face Nothing red in color that could be iron....
green star polyps grow on the glass of aquariums sometimes....soo.....
if i cycle glass, plastic, dry limestone long enough.....could it be made "live" ? stable?

[Tang_Cool]

Maybe, if you seed it with live rock first, but i think this process takes months

[Paul B]

My reef was started with all dead rock. I collected it in the Caribbean and bleached it in the hotel before I brought it on the plane. There was no live rock tanks in those days.
Paul

[SaVeThEeELs]

i got slabs of cave limestone.....boiled...not bleached...and broken outback mugs....plastic im not having as much luck yet....maybe havent found the right stuff.....the geometric cubes i use to hold stuff up are made w/ light grating...

the tank has been running a year