I'm no expert...but I feel like pulling a rock with coral growth on it out of the ocean may be a punishable offense lol.
Please don't. The worlds reefs have enough going against them.Ok, am I allowed to go to the ocean for this?I am in california
This right here. Go to reefrocks.net and order a box of rocks, that homemade stuff needs to sit for six month to a year in water to leach our the Ph. I'd worry about all the equipment first before coraline algae. I'm gonna start checkin in on this forum again, I'll post some stuff here that pertains to your exact situation later today.You can cure cement into live rock, however a piece buried in the garden could have all kinds of crap leached into it, I personally would pass. Use all live rock (expensive) or you can also buy dry rock from a lot of the online vendors (less expensive)
Purple up is a sham product I would never buy (my personal opinion only) all you have to do is keep your calcium, alk and Ph in line and have proper light to grow it.
I'm fairly certain it is illegal to collect rock on any US coast, and to be honest the life you will get locally is not tropical and will likely die off in a tropical tank. In California you have tons of rock coming in daily, just find a store to sell you a piece that is a pound or two, and put it in the tank with the dead rock or home made rock. In a few months you will be sick of scraping coralline off the glass and will wonder why you ever wanted it so bad.
X 2You can cure cement into live rock, however a piece buried in the garden could have all kinds of crap leached into it, I personally would pass. Use all live rock (expensive) or you can also buy dry rock from a lot of the online vendors (less expensive)
Purple up is a sham product I would never buy (my personal opinion only) all you have to do is keep your calcium, alk and Ph in line and have proper light to grow it.
I'm fairly certain it is illegal to collect rock on any US coast, and to be honest the life you will get locally is not tropical and will likely die off in a tropical tank. In California you have tons of rock coming in daily, just find a store to sell you a piece that is a pound or two, and put it in the tank with the dead rock or home made rock. In a few months you will be sick of scraping coralline off the glass and will wonder why you ever wanted it so bad.
I wouldn't put rep-cal or anything like that in the tank. purple up is a mix of calcium strontium magnesium and carbonates.I didn't know it was a sham thought it would be good to start with. I wouldn't use concrete. tufa rock is a good light cheap rock you can use. but I would get live rock you can add pieces over time, start with 2-3 pieces and add when you can. I currently use kent marine tech m magnesium, calcium, lugol's solution and strontium and molybdenum. kent marine has a reef starter kit that has calcium strontium and iodide.Isn't purple up just dissolved calcium?If so I can used some of my chameleon's calcium supplement w/ no D3 and put it in there.I was digging in the garden he other day to get some roots out and I have a couple chunks of concrete that are similar to reef rock.Can I cure these to use as live rock?