African Cichlids and Black lava rock caves
- Thread starter CichlidZ67
- Start date
Seachem sells a line of dark substrates called Flourite that range from black, brown to red. But they are quite pricey. You can also buy black diamond blasting sand for fraction of the price. You don’t need to have exact color matching, just dark rock with dark substrate, and light rock with light substrate.
Contrasting color can look esthetically pleasing, but unnatural. It’s OK with non cichlid, but with cichlid that dig and blow sand on rock, it can look messy with contrasting color.
You notice that I didn’t follow the color matching rule, as I set up my tanks decades ago with fish the only focus. Now that I have progressed to planted tank, aquascaping became important and I realized how ugly my aquascape was: mixed rock type, distractively colorful rock, and contrasting color.
Contrasting color can look esthetically pleasing, but unnatural. It’s OK with non cichlid, but with cichlid that dig and blow sand on rock, it can look messy with contrasting color.
You notice that I didn’t follow the color matching rule, as I set up my tanks decades ago with fish the only focus. Now that I have progressed to planted tank, aquascaping became important and I realized how ugly my aquascape was: mixed rock type, distractively colorful rock, and contrasting color.
I used black lava rock in my 125 cichlid tank years ago with out problem. It was said in a previous post, many fry survive with so many hiding spots and most likley uneaten food in the nooks and crannies. I sold the fry all the time to the point I was not getting anything for them. But I guess if thats a problem its one most if us can live with.
Out of 60 lbs I only got 4 decent sized pieces. The smaller ones will have to be silicone together. Aquascape Pro black silicone.
Someone commented that everything gets stuck under lava rock so rather than take them all out to clean, I built a rock stand out of pvc. Will make for hiding and escape routes like caves and give me 3 1/2" to stick the vacuum under. Hope this is not stupid. I know salt water folk use these for "live" rock. Front view will somewhat hide the stand with plants and rocks and black will match background and rocks. I already have live African cichlid sand in white, but think the contrast will be cool. Pic of pvc stand and 60 lbs lava rock from big orange store attached.
Nice! Yes I used a stand in one of my reef tanks most I didnt, I dont think it helps or hinders really. In a fresh tank may help as your clean up crew is really limited. In salt you've got bristleworms, pods, snails, crabs and shrimp not to much build up plus turn over is way higher so stuff doesnt settle too much.
I don’t mind debris temporarily trapped underneath lava rock as in weekly WC, I move them around (not taking them out) to siphon off the trapped debris. I Much prefer debris trapped in rock than in my HOBs which can focus on clarifying the water of fine, and thereby reduce filter cleaning frequency.
I found few stores that sell larger rocks by searching landscaping supplies on Google maps.
Then clicked on one of the results and then click on the company website and viola
Then clicked on one of the results and then click on the company website and viola
