I was thinking of trying to make live rock to sell for profit.

Here is my plan so far.

Make DIY live rock and let it leach for about 2 months or more if needed.

Setup a 5ft container and fill with the diy rock

Add salt water at 0.121 salinity.

Add about 1:3 ratio live rock to diy rock

Add protein skimmer and power heads.

Add 2 x 54w T5HO bulbs

Do bi weekly water changes of 10%

Now few questions maybe someone can help me with. How many hours per day lighting? What kelvin bulbs are best? What temperature? Do I need to add anything to get the nitrates and phosphates coraline algae need to grow?

Anything else I missed feel free to include! Thanks in advance

6-8 hours a day lighting will work just fine. Your T-5 will do nicely. Temp 78-81. You'll want to watch your Magnesium, CA and Alk if your going for Caralline Algae growth. Phospahtes as close to 0 as you can get them.
Calcium, KH, GH, pH, Electrolytes & Magnesium in Aquariums; Mineral Ions, Cations

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What you are talking about is aquacultured live rock. Go here. liverockranch.com.

expensive and not worth the shipping which is free. I bought it and am in process of replacing it. Don't waste your time. You can't duplicate real live rock.

Well, thats kinda going to be the way sooner or later. Some shops have figure that out, and now buy aquacultured Live Rock. And its pretty darn close. But heres my favorite. My local guy has both right now, and when he's out of Live Rock, he will only sell the Aquacultured.
MarcoRocks Aquarium Products

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Making your own live rock is great for those custom setups. Just treat that rock like if you were keeping actual live rock in a fish tank. The advantage of what you are wanting to do is its parasite free, no middle man, custom requests, and the experience.
When you put the finished rock into a container to help make it live, Just put a light strip over it, heater set to 77, Spec gravity 1.024ish, and keep those calcium levels kinda high so coraline algae can grow. btw be sure to throw in a power head and live rock into the batch to introduce coraline. And when selling this stuff, make sure you advertise it being environmental safe and pest free. The market for ocean safe rock is growing. And who knows, maybe soon you will be one of my suppliers for my live rock ;)

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Zooad's and shrooms
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You didn't mention how long it will take to make that base rock into live rock. My base rock is still just base rock and it has been in the tank with live rock for 5 months.

Its more than just Rock at this point. There are organisms growing in it now. What are you looking for when you say turn live? You want the Coralline growing all over it?

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I know its a long process. I'll probably wait about a year or so before selling it. Not just the coraline algae but for it to become the very same as the rock that seeded it. I've heard of some places selling man made live rock and I think its a pretty good idea. i mean think of the tons and tons of live rock being taken from coral reefs every year for home aquariums. Most corals and fish are man made so in my opinion its the way things are going as man becomes more eco friendly

I want it to look like more than base rock. I know there have to be microorganisms growing on it. I'd like to see tube worms and such. I don't even have coralline algae on my live rock yet.

Yea, then your looking at alittle bit of time. How much? Thats way to hard to determine. Coralline algae growth is determined by your water parameters. Maintaining your ALK, MAG, CA and having no phosphates will get it going much faster than if these were not watched.

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