‘Real’ live rock is really falling out of favor in the reef aquarium hobby and dry or artificial rock is really starting to take over aquarium reefscapes. Solvireef is a new company from South Africa that debuted at Reefapalooza Orlando showing off their very own take on what artificial rock can be.
Where most artificial rock to date is some familiar combination of cement and aggregate, Solvireef’s rock looks quite different although they use the same basic cement, sand and rock recipe. The unique shapes of Solvireef rock appears more artisanal and even somewhat resembles ceramic rock, but it is indeed made from a cement base.
It seems that Solvireef makes their rock with less reliance on preformed molds and pattern because their rocks all looked quite different. One reason for this is that you can definitely see that the Solvireef rock is made with dissolvable materials that leave interesting voids in the rock once they are cured in water.
The rock from Solvireef is available in a few different categories including scape, shelf, nano and branch rock with the option of either white or purple coloration. The scape and shelf rock are some of the most ‘3D-rich’ artificial rock shapes we’ve seen and that branch rock is nice and dense and quite reminiscent of the real thing. If memory serves us right, the target retail price for SolviReef rock should be around $6 per pound and given how good it looks, we hope to see this rock hit the reef scene all over the world as soon as possible. [SolviReef]
