mik3c
Community Member
Maybe I came into the hobby too late but it seems like there really isn't a lot of great rock available and that it's just going to be that way now so I'm seeing a lot of people (including myself) experimenting with different ways of breaking up lumpy, chunky dry rock and reforming it into more interesting shapes. Of course this isn't anything new, but it seems likely that increasingly this is going to be the approach taken to creating marine aquascapes and there are plenty of threads discussing different techniques for joining, stacking, etc. but I wonder if it might be worth a thread (if one doesn't already exist) collecting and discussing these techniques broadly. A few things that come to mind are:
Types & sources of base rock (live/base/purple concrete/whatever)
Fracturing & working rocks: chisel, drill, file, hulk-smash?
Joining/bonding: pegs, epoxies, putties, cements & additives
Hiding seams
Shutting up about the rule of thirds already
I thought aquascaping was going to be my favorite part of this process and be this nice peaceful zen rock-stacking thing but now I kind of want to burn my apartment down, scrape off my fingerprints, walk away and start a new life.
A couple of things I learned about working with the cement(that e-marco stuff but I think you can use more commonplace "home depot" stuff with an acrylic additive.) It adheres better when it's wet so I spray the surfaces with RODI, squish them together with a lump of whatever you're using, then I spray it again and work it in a bit. Then - this might be key - I set the piece in a foil pan full of sand which holds it securely in place. It seems like if I do that, as long as it doesn't move at all for the first couple of hours I get a pretty good bond and I can build a few pieces at once this way.
Also I've been stringing pieces of small rock on stiff titanium wire like beads on a string, bending it around a little and locking the pieces in place with epoxy to create twisting, branching structures. Did anyone else try this?
I'll snap a few pictures but photography might be the only thing I do worse than aquascaping.
Types & sources of base rock (live/base/purple concrete/whatever)
Fracturing & working rocks: chisel, drill, file, hulk-smash?
Joining/bonding: pegs, epoxies, putties, cements & additives
Hiding seams
Shutting up about the rule of thirds already
I thought aquascaping was going to be my favorite part of this process and be this nice peaceful zen rock-stacking thing but now I kind of want to burn my apartment down, scrape off my fingerprints, walk away and start a new life.
A couple of things I learned about working with the cement(that e-marco stuff but I think you can use more commonplace "home depot" stuff with an acrylic additive.) It adheres better when it's wet so I spray the surfaces with RODI, squish them together with a lump of whatever you're using, then I spray it again and work it in a bit. Then - this might be key - I set the piece in a foil pan full of sand which holds it securely in place. It seems like if I do that, as long as it doesn't move at all for the first couple of hours I get a pretty good bond and I can build a few pieces at once this way.
Also I've been stringing pieces of small rock on stiff titanium wire like beads on a string, bending it around a little and locking the pieces in place with epoxy to create twisting, branching structures. Did anyone else try this?
I'll snap a few pictures but photography might be the only thing I do worse than aquascaping.
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