Man Made Live Rock poll?

lapdog2020 · #1 11-03-2010, 08:29 PM

Would you ever put Man made live rock in your tank if it was fully cured and cheeper then what your buying now?

Tell me why you wouldn't!

and/or

Tell me why you would!

Is there much of a diff. Between the two.

hillegom · #2 11-03-2010, 08:33 PM

I vote NO
Would you put an imitation fish in your tank?

lastlight · #3 11-03-2010, 08:43 PM

I have doubts about the porosity and genuine appearance of man-made rock. I only buy rock once I prefer to have real rock.

Jfish · #4 11-03-2010, 08:52 PM

I dont have any man made live rock in my tank or have I had any experience with it. However if it served the same purpose of housing bacteria just as well as the real stuff but at a cheaper price I would use it. Eventually it would get covered in coraline and noone would know the difference. I'd probably mix it in with some real stuff if it didn't look that great but if it was easy to stack and aquascape with I wouldn't be against using it.

blacknife · #5 11-03-2010, 09:53 PM

I made some 2 months ago... tried to make it pretty b ut its still ugly.. and heavier than what i was planing. and the ph still has not stabilized.

i think if it ever stabilizes it will go in my sump but for the DT i vote real thing only.

Cliff · #6 11-03-2010, 10:54 PM

I feel the same way as you blacknife. I actually looked into this two months ago. I just thought I would end up with a bunch of different looking / styles of rocks. I was also worried about the longterm effects of the cement in my tank.

Dez · #7 11-03-2010, 11:14 PM

I feel that they have their uses. I have a bunch of cement in my tank. I have made some man made rock for the purposes of hiding large "Y' fittings and nozzles in my aquarium. I feel that it looks more natural than seeing piping in the aquarium. Many people that have come over and have seen the rock in person has been fairly impressed as you can't tell the difference once you have the variety of stuff grown and living on it. I have seen no negative effects in 15 months. After all, frag plugs are man made rock. They have all been encrusted over and hidden not in my aquarium.

SmallFry · #8 11-13-2010, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hillegom

I vote NO
Would you put an imitation fish in your tank?

I wouldn't have imitation fish either, but they would match my imitation sunlight, imitation current, imitation food and imitation seawater..

All depends how far you're comfortable following the same argument I guess...

Delphinus · #9 11-13-2010, 12:40 AM

I have a cave rock in my tank that was made by shaping it around a hand in a nylon disposable glove. The idea is neat and finally after about 8 years or so I have a fish who loves the spot (my trigger) for sleeping but otherwise nobody (fish-wise) really cared much for it. It took a long time to get covered in coraline and look natural, like maybe 2 years or thereabouts compared to the usual couple of months for a typical reef rock.

I dunno. I certainly see nothing wrong with a mixture of rocks when done nicely and they've been awesome, but I've seen some rockwork that was exclusively DIY rock and either looks contrived or covered in hair algae. So it seems to me the potential is for it to be an epic win, or epic fail, or any point in between.

I understand some DIY rock nowadays people are using rocksalt to increase the porosity of the rock .. interesting. I haven't seen any made like that in person though.

wingedfish · #10 11-13-2010, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I understand some DIY rock nowadays people are using rocksalt to increase the porosity of the rock

this is how I built my rock a couple months ago. I molded it in the garden dirt. it's very porous. presently it is in my tank and looks nothing like "real" rock. I won't comment on weather or not others should use it. I like the price and the fact that I didn't rape a reef for it.