Home made Aqua rocks - Whould you?

Good afternoon,
I've been playing with creating some cement rocks. I first started to create these for my Marine tank some time ago.
It worked pretty great! (Granted - it's not LR, and it's not that porous- but it worked for me -at a quarter of a price)

These types of rocks worked very well in my Malawi setup. Creating caves, and hiding places for the fish.

Now I want to venture into a semi "commerial" market - not big... Just making a rock of 5 every now and again.
But what will the demand be?
Will you guys buy something like this if you see it in the shops? (Note - I'm not trying to sell these now - I'm just doing some market research :bigsmile

These rocks range between 20-30 cm in lenght... And weighs betweem 1-3kg....


Below are some samples....

 

@Wandrag - sure mate,I'd say give it a go...If you just look at how many requests for rocks there are on this forum alone,they should fly of the LFS's shelves - especialy for Malawi tanks and so forth....

 

Now it you can make some of the lovely pilindaba rockery's I've seen... I'd buy

 

Yip i'd buy them.

 

They look great, I'd def buy

 

Thanks for all the responses... Now at least i can give it a try.

Now - the big question is.... How much can one really charge for these? (Ok depends on size I recon..)
I've never really bought any rocks - except for LR - and I never really shopped around for rocks....
I was thinking on the lines of +- R 35-45 a rock...Too much- too little?

 

hmm it is all about the price - i.e would you sell it to the LFS for R50 - means they would want to sell it for 150 - 200 .. would I buy this for R150, probably not, a bag of sand and cement R32 - hours of funny doing the DIY rather ..

 

That’s true.... Hopefully I can bargain with them NOT to sell it for 150-200.
BUT then again - I'm going to bargain on the inpatient nature of us humans...
To make these rocks take time. Well not the actual making of the rocks, but more the curing part.
After the rock is “casted†you must wait 3-4 days for it to dry. Then comes the looonnngg waiting period of curing the rock. An uncured rock can cause havoc in once tank. Your PH will sky rocket…. Killing all your stock.
It takes me at least a month or two to cure these babies… Just to make sure that I don’t cause any problems in the tanks. J
So saying all this – most people starting out with their tanks, are an inpatient lot. Sure it will cost them a bit more to buy it – but at least they get that “instant†nice looking tank…

 

well - I can always try....

 

Cool idea, I would go ahead and make up the rocks. Take those as samples to your lfs and see if you can spark some interest there. You could even try the reptile shops. I made some backgrounds and rocks out of resin, but you need a definite mould for that, and it's expensive... are you sealing these rocks? It looks like it. They look really stunning. Please pm me the details of the sealing agent, I'm busy with my own background and I'm a little wary of not sealing the cement before I put it into my tank.

TIA
Kim

 

@Skye01 - Thanks - I'll take some samples this weekend... Hopefully I can get something going...
Regarding the cement - Nope I don't use anything to seal it.... Like I've mentioned in me previous posts, I just cures the rocks by leaving it in water for +- 1-2 months...So it takes time to before you can actually use the rocks. Just keep an eye on the PH of the water. Adding un-cured rocks will cause a rise in your PH.

After it's cured you're good to go. I've used almost 50kg of cement rocks in my marine setup (for more than two years) - with no ill affect.
And belief me, marine setups are way more "fragile" when it comes to water parameters than freshwater setups.

 

ja i'd buy

 

Hi, Your rocks look quite stunning if I do say so myself,I've made some of my own backrounds and Rocks and know that its not an easy process. But I do think unless you presoak them yourself and produce them at high volumes it won't Be very profitable for you.its going to cost you more to make them them than you are going to Get back if you sell them at lfs's. But just as an idea why don't you consider doing more custom work?where guys come To you and order a custom made scape that suits their needs and is exactly what they want. I'm sure many guys,especially them on this forum will pay good money for a more elaborate scape That was made exactly how they wanted it! Just an idea,anyway! Courtney

 

Great idea...
My aim is not really to make thousands...Just enough to support my hobby.

I was actually thinking of building custom palindrum's using these rocks & drifwood...

 

What is this palindrum

 

I'm not sure about the spelling... (I'm sure that I've got it wrong...).:sad2:
But it's a tank setup with half land half water. (Where you keep mud-skippers and that sort of stuff)...

 

If you are only doing it for fun then go for it!One needs something to keep one out of trouble! I think guys would go for paludariums,they seem to be increasingly popular these days!You might find quite a market for them if they are made to their own specification!

 

I would buy a few also .I go to henley on Klip a lot

 

Just want to share my good news....
I took a couple samples of these rocks to local LFS. He took it all, Plus he put in another order...
So I'm going to have a couple of busy days.
(Only pitty is that he can only get it in almost two months time) :-(