How to build reef pillars with live rock – a quick guide!

The last year, many questions about our reef pillars reached us and that is why we want to focuse in this article on that. There are many examples on the web with excellent scapes using reef pillars.

Reef pillars have got a big advantage – they are creating a subjective depth a in natural reefs with the support of the blue background.

If you decide to scape your reef like that, we want to show you some ways to do that:
1. Reef ceramic pillars
2. Pillars made with a PVC pipe
3.Cemented reef pillar

To the first and the second bullet, we don’t want to focuse on in detail:
Using a ready-made ceramic pillar is easy but you’re also limited in the design and your creativity. In addition, we would always advise you to add as much live rock in the tank. Live rock is a real biologic booster and adds more bacteria and zooplancton to your tank.

We decided to use 100% of live rock to keep the biological population and the variety of species very high from the beginning. Of course it is also possible to construct the base with dead “live” rock. In our opinion, however, a minimum of 40% -50% of live rock is very useful.

2. Pillars made with a PVC pipe
There are some examples of pillars made with a middle pipe. The stones are drilled with a 20mm bit and then threaded on the PVC pipe. A flat plate is used as a base, also acrylic glass could be used. We decided against this technique, because for us, the pillars don’t have this natural look but the stones are looking piled up.

Here are more informations about this!

3. The reef cemented pillar – our way of doing this:
We have decided to cement the stones to one piece in the dry. So we have created a little guide for you:

Choose and order live rock

We had one big advantage, to pick out the stones directly out of a fresh import at the whitecorals.com store. So we could put the stones together in our planned design and only buy the amount we really needed.

If one has not the possibility to look at the stones before buying them, we recommend to send a sketch to the dealer with your detailed wishes.
In addition, you should choose larger stones (rather less small) and maybe a good mix of plates.

After transporting them, you should always keep them slightely wet with sea water.

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Reef cement
If you have set up the pillar, take the stones apart again and remember their position and composition of the rocks. The base should consist of a maximum of 2 larger stones. This makes it easier later to lift the finished pillar in your tank. Take step-by-step photos to help remembering the composition.

Then the pillar is constructed from the bottom up again. The points of contact between the stones should get fixed by reef cement (stir a thick texture) and then placed stone by stone.

Bonding
After a bonding time of 10-15 minutes, the columns are ready to move into the tank. This is done according to the size of the pillar and the tank best with 2-3 people in total.
On the ground of your tank, place a Styrofoam plate to protect the glass from falling down stones. Remove it before setting them on their final position.

Fill the tank with sea water
After that, the tank should be filled as soon as possible. To keep the rocks alive, keep them always slightly wet.