DIY Rock Help

I'm waiting for the guys whom are doing some work at my place to finish up and then I'm gonna be using all the cement that they didn't use to do my own DIY rock... I really think that they made me buy more cement than I needed so I think I'll have alot to work with when they're done. Soon enough I'll start working on it. The macaroni and rock salt sounds like good ideas. I'll be using portland cement. How about beach sand? Trinidad is loaded with beaches. Each of which, aprox. 15 mins away from my house and I'm really working on a tight budget as a college student and working on starting up my own business so aragonite at $210.00 per 20lb's is surely out of the question.:

 

Will water softner pellets work/safe to use instead of the rock salt?

 

Im not sure about the pellets, but I cant wait to try this! I have a bag of crushed river rock I was thinking about throwing in the mix also, would that be safe?

 

I don't use sand in my mix at all... If I were I wouldn't worry about the silicates though. Here's a pic of some rock in my old tank just after I set it up...

Water softener pellets will work fine. But you have to cure it to dissolve the pellets. The salt that isn't molded works best IMO, though. It's more random sized and looks more natural.

 

i used crushed oyster shelles i got from the feed store, $12.00 for 50 lbs, and live stock salt for $6.00 for 60 lbs it worked great. i also wanted to get a large salt lick block and smash it up to make caves and arches but didn t get time

 

Portland Cement........I've used crushed coral/sand mix, crushed oyster shellss(used with chickens), noodles & dog food. The dog food works pretty good when making caves. You really have to scrub it after curing. I cured my last batch in my old 55 gal and never once changed the water. I tested for pH every few days and when it got to 8.2 I took it out and rinsed it really good. WhatI didn't rinse got eaten by my crabs and snails after a few days. They seemed to enjoy a few different spots on the rocks.


you can get the cement at lowes or h.d.

 

I have the cement.
I didnt get crushed oyster shells because they were 19.99 for 50 lbs and I didnt have that much handy at the time. My parents are going to the beach so im thinking of getting them to get some shells for me when they go.

I was thinking of breaking up the pellets so they would be random sizes.
So you just used regular salt? I didn't figure the holes would be big enough.

I plan on cureing it for 3-4 months anyways.

 

I found five gallons buckets of sand picked up from the waters in florida pretty cheap. Look it up on ebay. It is good sand...

 

You could break up the salt. I don't see why it wouldn't work, but it may prove difficult. I have seen rouck that used the pellets, and it didn't look that bad, but when you look at it you can tell how it was done. But the bags are cheap so if you already have a bag a new one isn't much of an expense. I think I only paid like $5 or so for a bag?

What I did when I picked up the softener salt was too feel through the bag to try to get the salt that has the biggest particle size. It's actually pretty big unless it gets broken up during shipping. The bags at the bottom of the pallet are pretty crushed. But the size will work in either case. I prefer a good mix of sizes, both big a small -it just looks more natural. But the small size allows alot of pores that will actually work well for you. Better IMO that the pellets.

 

Well its not actually pellets, I guess I just called them the wrong thing.
They are the water softner rocks or whatever you want to call them.
Yes they were around $5.