Im setting up a 100 gallon sa/ca cichlid tank, and have been thinking of how im going to lay it out. I got the idea to take small cuts of larger diameter pvc and pvc elbows and coating them with concrete to give them a natural cave look. Has anyone ever tried this? I also wasnt sure if all types of concrete were aquarium safe or if it would be beter to just silicone small rocks to the outside of the pvc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
The ever and seldom answered " home made cave for cichlids" question....
I say that the concrete, when properly cured/soaked will most likely be fine.
Getting it to stik to the pvc...good luck.
I have seen and tried distressing the pvc via blowtorch and a little creativity...it bubbles and melts, bends and becomes very interesting and can be shaped and pulled moved and squished into cool cwnter pieces. The real question is, however, would a nice piece of Texas holey rock more adequately fit the bill and buffer the ph at the same time?
Try out your concrete idea and post pics...I have thought about this myself...even considered small water ballons frozen, coated with quickset concrete and then cured in the freezer. Once the quickset is hard, set the thing in the sun, thaw the water ballons and simply remove them leaving the "caves" behind....kind of like lost wax candle making....
Good luck.
I say that the concrete, when properly cured/soaked will most likely be fine.
Getting it to stik to the pvc...good luck.
I have seen and tried distressing the pvc via blowtorch and a little creativity...it bubbles and melts, bends and becomes very interesting and can be shaped and pulled moved and squished into cool cwnter pieces. The real question is, however, would a nice piece of Texas holey rock more adequately fit the bill and buffer the ph at the same time?
Try out your concrete idea and post pics...I have thought about this myself...even considered small water ballons frozen, coated with quickset concrete and then cured in the freezer. Once the quickset is hard, set the thing in the sun, thaw the water ballons and simply remove them leaving the "caves" behind....kind of like lost wax candle making....
Good luck.
I made a background with caves with styrofoam and concrete. I used grout that was advertised as being fast drying and sticks to many surfaces.
No real need to use PVC, just shape the styrofoam. You can take multiple pieces of styrofoam and silicone them together before applying the concrete. For example you can take 2 pieces of styrofoam, carve out the cave shape between them, and then silicone them back together. When you apply the concrete, don't worry too much about any exposed styrofoam inside the cave. The styrofoam won't hurt the water or anything, you only really need to coat it for aesthetics.
Biggest downside to using styrofoam is that its very bouyant. You have to use a crap ton of silicone to stick it to the tank so that it doesn't float out, which means you can only realistically use it on an empty tank.
Depending on the size of what you make you could make it heavy enough to sink, but you'd have to make it REALLY heavy.
Here's the cave I made. If I had to do it again, I would have made more caves, and made them bigger.
No real need to use PVC, just shape the styrofoam. You can take multiple pieces of styrofoam and silicone them together before applying the concrete. For example you can take 2 pieces of styrofoam, carve out the cave shape between them, and then silicone them back together. When you apply the concrete, don't worry too much about any exposed styrofoam inside the cave. The styrofoam won't hurt the water or anything, you only really need to coat it for aesthetics.
Biggest downside to using styrofoam is that its very bouyant. You have to use a crap ton of silicone to stick it to the tank so that it doesn't float out, which means you can only realistically use it on an empty tank.
Depending on the size of what you make you could make it heavy enough to sink, but you'd have to make it REALLY heavy.
Here's the cave I made. If I had to do it again, I would have made more caves, and made them bigger.
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"No real need to use PVC, just shape the styrofoam...."
PVC isn't bouyant and when done with as much creativity as forming and carving Styrofoam, is much more realistic.
OP, if you're just looking for caves for Africans, stacking rocks, (preferably flat rocks) is way easy and the individual caves you create can be changed from time to time duy just restacking the rocks. I used sandstone "brickss" and flagstone to make little cichlid condos wwhen I had rift lake monsters...again, Texas holey rock, (or sand stone) will look authentic and buffer the ph...anything else is going to require time, trial and error, patience, creativity and patience.
PVC isn't bouyant and when done with as much creativity as forming and carving Styrofoam, is much more realistic.
OP, if you're just looking for caves for Africans, stacking rocks, (preferably flat rocks) is way easy and the individual caves you create can be changed from time to time duy just restacking the rocks. I used sandstone "brickss" and flagstone to make little cichlid condos wwhen I had rift lake monsters...again, Texas holey rock, (or sand stone) will look authentic and buffer the ph...anything else is going to require time, trial and error, patience, creativity and patience.
