Dry rock made of Cement?

[jhameeh]

Pictures says a thousand word.

My aquarium fabricator offered me this "rock" made of cement. I am newbie to this, so I just want to seek some advice / opinion if this is okay to put in my future saltwater build. He said the "rock" is cured and made of sand and Portland cement. The design is really nice.

Appreciate for any response.

 

[bios]

Cement is not dangerous in a Reef tank and that rock si very beautiful and seems to be porous as well
In my opinion is OK
I prefer live rocks....

 

[Neon Jungle]

Wow thats pretty awesome. Send one my way

 

[sil40sx]

Following,.. I would like to know as well.

That rock is very nice!

 

[Waterjockey]

Lots of people use cement rock. Those are really nice pieces. As long as they are truely "cured", and not leaching phosphates they'll look really good.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yes the technique has been around for quite a while. Assuming they used the correct cement its great.
I dont think its Po,(could be wrong) it leaches its lime. Kalkwasser. Its cement. So it may change your Ph until fully cured. and ad calcium and alk to the water, ph being the noticeable change
the other thing is plasticisers I believe. shouldn't be any in Portland cement.

I would cure it like live rock in a bin of old tank water personally.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=diy portland live rock

http://www.marcorocks.com/aquascape-supplies/e-marco-400/

 

[pablue]

I have never seen cement rock before but i have been told about it. I agree though it has to be cured and tested before i would say its tank ready! fill a brute can up with salt water, a power head, and heater and let the rock soak for possibly up to a month to cure it and test the water levels over that time. If the phosphates never go down then its probably a bad idea

 

[Harris3005]

As well as checking for phosphates I would soak them and keep checking the Ph too to be sure. When I made some from cement and aragonite sand it took weeks for the ph to stabilise. If it's really cured you should be fine but if you've got some time anyway you may as well be sure.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

http://www.garf.org/class.html

 

[jhameeh]

Thanks a lot guys. My fabricator said it is fully cured and i dont need to do anything except place it inside the tank. He is doing it for many years and even the "rock" was even shown in local television aqua channel.

 

[markfmvl]

nice pieces...... I heard about this method of curing cement rock. I tried it just using a couple of air stones and a air pump in plain water from my well. It took just a week to lower the pH. I was quite surprised. Apparently the co2 from the air stone reacts with the alkalinity and neutralizes it much faster than just soaking as I had previously done.