# Aquarium safe Cement/Epoxy



## jplove25

I would like to build a rock wall for my aquarium that looks similar to this.
Is there a cement or epoxy that you are aware of that i could use to make a rock wall?


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## duff

Foam board (Blue works best from my understanding as it is aquarium safe) Carve the design you are looking for and then cover in drylok (acrylic version) and add sand for texture if desired. You can tint the dry lock to color it. Or use expanding foam and carve it. Grout would also work to cover either one but you will need to let it set and do many water changes to adjust the ph or cover the grout in drylok. Do an internet search for DYI aquarium backgrounds and you'll find lots of great ideas. Good luck!


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## jplove25

Hey Duff, Thanks for the info but i'm looking for a cement/epoxy that i can you to glue real rocks together. I didn't make that clear in my first post.

I want to make a rock wall with real rocks and i would like to be able to cement the rocks together. If there's a glue/epoxy that would work i can go that route too. I can't find any information when i google aquarium safe cement.


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## Brownthumb07

You can use silicone to hold the rocks together. That way when you decide you don't like the wall in a couple weeks its easy to take apart. If you use quikrete or some other epoxy you are going to have to break the glass to get the rocks out of the tank.


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## jplove25

I don't want to cement them to the Glass. I just want to cement the rocks to each other. I'll google quikrete to see if that will work for what i want to do.


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## Brownthumb07

Quickrete will work. I use it for my DIY backgrounds. Go to http://dramaticaquascapes.com/ to see what type to use. It takes 30 days for the mortar to fully cure so expect some gritty leaching until then or even a bit longer. The quikrete will also raise your PH level but if you're using co2 it should even itself out for the most part.


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## mistergreen

gorilla glue would work.. It's a water base epoxy. It'll expand as it cures. You can throw sand on it to give it texture when it's about to completely cure.


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## jplove25

awesome, thanks for the advice guys.


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## GeToChKn

I used regular silicone before to glue rocks to my turtle docks which was plexi and also my roomie used it to glue Celuka (PVC plank) to rocks to make crayfish caves.


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## tspad

I recommend to use Natural Prompt Cement for aquarium ... be carefull with normal portland cement as they may contain harmfull products for the fishes ... Natural Prompt Cement from Vicat in produced from a natural stone in France, without any additive and is fully compatible with drinking water. :icon_eek: 
Vicat is the only supplier in the world for this product.


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## m00se

mistergreen said:


> gorilla glue would work.. It's a water base epoxy. It'll expand as it cures. You can throw sand on it to give it texture when it's about to completely cure.


Gorilla Glue is polyurethane.


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## lochaber

Just get some epoxy resin. I've used the clear-coat/pour-on/etc. type that you can usually find in Lowes/Home Depot/Hardware stores in the paint/varnish section, or craft/art stores in the sculpture/casting section, or sometimes in the bigger Kmart/Wal-Mart/Target craft section.

It's a pretty easy 1:1 mix, fairly viscous. mix it up with some sand until you get the thickness you like, and use that instead of mortar/grout. 

I've done this on a few paludariums, and some other odd sculpture-type things. Relatively easy, fairly forgiving (make a mistake, just coat it again), holds up fairly well, and I think it looks fairly good.

You might be able to just silicone the rocks together, and then pack the silicone with sand, but (I haven't tried this personally), I think the sand would eventually fall off and expose the silicone.

I recently ran across an epoxy-based grout in ?I think Lowes, but I don't recall the name of it, and I have no idea what it's like to use, I think it had some ASTM rating or something. Might be worth looking into.


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