New 180g Waterbox with MarcoRock

[Wanderlust21]

So I found a video on YouTube about how to attach MarcoRock (MR) stones together without any ugly putty or epoxy. The process starts with grinding up fragments of MR into a fine powder via a mortar and pestle. You then press two pieces of MR together, dash a bit of that powder you’ve created onto the contact points of your two pieces and then drip super thin CA glue onto the powder. It creates an exothermic reaction that bonds the pieces together permanently with a stronger bond than the actual rock itself. The bonded seam is close to indistinguishable from the attached rock.

As an experiment, I had just received some old Tonga that had been recently bleached and I attempted to attach the Tonga to the MR using the same MR powder… low and behold, it bonded so strong I could lift up the 15lbs of MR by the holding the Tonga in the air. The MR powder also worked to bond two pieces of different rock together via that same exothermic reaction (and I’ve not heard of anybody doing that). Absolutely loving this method of aquascaping! Oh and yeah, to the people that will say I need more rock for my soon-to-be-had fish to hide in… I’ve got lots of other rock I will be adding.

 

[Alexander1312]

I really like the aquascape. I have used the same method, which works great. The only downside I can see is that mounting corals might become difficult with the left and right parts of the scape. Also, I'm not sure if you should be adding much more rock than that. I would recommend live rock to the mix; otherwise, this will be a slow process.

 

[Wanderlust21]

I really like the aquascape. I have used the same method, which works great. The only downside I can see is that mounting corals might become difficult with the left and right parts of the scape. Also, I'm not sure if you should be adding much more rock than that. I would recommend live rock to the mix; otherwise, this will be a slow process.

So it’s a 180g tank and there is only about 90 lbs of MR in there at the moment. There is a 2-3” sand bed I suppose. But, I was led to believe I should have 1-2 lbs of rock per gallon. Is this not correct? I Really like how it looks at the moment and I wouldn’t necessarily want to add more rock to it but I figured it was best to do so. Regarding attaching corrals you do make a good point and perhaps that could be a reason to add some additional small platforms jutting out from the two outside structures. Corals are a little in the future for me though, I want this tank stable chemically first. I won’t be doing water changes often, if at all and I need to make sure I have a strong grasp on the chemistry requirements to do that safely before I add any sensitive corals. I have a LFS that’s willing to take a part of the rock I will be putting in and seed it with the bacteria in his tank for a while to help me get a bit of a head start with that.
I should also mention I have aspirations of getting a snowflake eel and I know they require a good amount of rock to hide in as well as a strong aquascape so they can’t knock it over.