我们本周一直在露水，并在7x2x2'墙壁的水箱中创建了一个干礁。这位七英尺的所有者想要四个独立的炸弹，这些炸弹将允许良好的全面水流，并且可以从两侧看到。
When you build rock structures they need to be solid and long-lasting, so we opted for reef cement to literally cement the rocks together and stick fast so that we could create some gravity-defying rock scapes with some big pieces, that weren’t going to crumble and fall apart at the first sign of maintenance.
有很多方法可以将礁石岩石从环氧油灰to polymer and super glue, but when you’re fastening big rocks and creating big structures, cement is the best way to do it. The first rule when using cement is that it has to be reef-safe cement, not the type of cement you would build a house with as it will leach lime and send the tank’s pH through the roof. Reef cement looks like ordinary cement, only the companies that supply it claim that it doesn’t affect water chemistry and is perfectly safe to be used in tanks with delicate corals, even underwater. The second difference with reef cement is how fast it sets.
If you’ve never used reef cement before we recommend some practice with some spare rocks of the same material beforehand. It arrives in a grey, dry powder form, and you then need to mix water into it until it achieves the consistency of mortar, for laying bricks. With ordinary cement, this would be straightforward forward but reef cement starts a chemical reaction the second it gets wet and if you don’t use that wet cement within minutes of mixing it, it starts to set and go hard, and if it does that in the bucket before you place it between rocks, you’ll have to throw it away, so practice making it up to the right consistency and applying it in the right quantities, at the right speed, before it sets.
尽管它是安全的，但建议使用手套，护目镜和防尘口罩也可能会有所帮助。使用时，它确实就像是建筑工地，因此，如果外面相对温暖且干燥，请将项目带到外面，损坏家具的可能性较小。为了混合我们，我们实际上使用了建筑商的桶和抹子，慢慢地向水泥加入少量水，然后剧烈混合，直到达到正确的一致性为止。混合后，制作一个高尔夫球大小的斑点，然后涂抹。
与胶水不同，礁石水泥没有伸展将另一个岩石放在上面然后轻轻按一下，就像您躺在砖头一样。如果调整岩石，则需要通过将其推动并需要将其推入新位置来调整水泥，并且如果您移动岩石并且没有设置固体，则两块岩石将会分开，您必须重新开始。我们使用了几种类型的岩石和水泥，它们都以相同的方式工作。
我们发现我们做的第一件事the slurry way too wet. This stuff needs to look and behave like concrete, so it needs to be thickand湿，与两个表面保持良好接触并快速设置。我们还发现，我们在每种债券中的应用不足，然后又回来了，然后再应用了更多。最困难的键是反对重力的键，尤其是当您想悬挂的岩石（板状）重几公斤时。为此，我们支撑着岩石，将它们放在pres依的水泥上，然后在移动它们之前将它们放了几个小时。
尽管岩石开始几乎立即设定，但我们了解了至少几个小时无法正确设置的艰难方法，如果您有奢侈的时间，让岩石设置为24小时。同样，一致性是制作完美水泥混合物的关键，但是如果您正确地将其保留足够长的时间，则应该像混凝土一样设置。
The reef cement we used made a mess, we probably won’t reuse the bucket or trowel we mixed it with, but it worked out much more cost-effective than using a couple of kilos of epoxy, and when set, it felt more permanent too.We created the structuresoutside of the tank to get all-around access but then recommend they are lifted in slowly when set, with the bases fully supported. If they aren’t cemented properly rocks can come apart and we dislodged one foundation stone and one plate by not waiting long enough, not fully supporting them while carrying them, and by knocking them into neighboring structures. Cement was everywhere but now that we’ve done it twice, we will better next time and the phrase practice makes perfect certainly applies here. Give it a go.
