Regarding Rock Caves

[nagukush]

Hi Friends !

Just wanted to know - How does one make caves and other structures using seperate pieces of rock ? Wont it be dangerous if the rocks slided or slipped someday and fall on the fish or on the glass ? What is the technque used for making safe structures ? I would love to add some rock work for my Fronts :)

Kindly advice...
Thanks !
Kush

[nickmcmechan]

there are two basic techniques i am aware of

1. put a shallow layer of sand down to protect the glass. then put first layer of rocks down. then put more sand on to stabilise the bottom layer. then build your rock display on top...carefully...this takes a long time...you have to carefully wiggle each rock as you go to check stability

2. make the bottom layer of rocks stabel again but this time silicone the rocks to your aquarium background. silicone each rock as you go to ensure stability

if the rocks strike the glass at all you could possiby damage the aquarium

[Virtuoso2K12]

and there's also something called aquarium safe silicon where you can secure them together, GL!

[mostlycichlids]

I don't use silicone. A it would be way to hard to remove the rocks in the future and two unnecessary time to apply, let dry, etc. Just stack them carefully and you will likely be fine. some use eggcrate under the base rocks to reduce pressure points on the bottom glass. I do not use egg crate for mine.

[Hurley]

I too have not used silicone. I just stack the rocks carefully and wiggle them a bit. It they move easily I re position them. I bought egg-crate but I ended up no using it and just went with using the substrate.

[helios99]

For making individual caves you really wouldn't need to use silicone. Just make sure they have a stable base and add some substrate after positioning the rock to fix them better.

For the stacks others have already mentioned the methods you could use. The only thing would I suggest is that you don't pile them up in the centre and keep them distributed so as to not create a high pressure point on the glass which could make it crack in the long term.

I would recommend making a couple or more stacks in contrasting size to make them look more natural and to evenly distribute the pressure if you're not using egg crates.

Surya

[DAVIDFBT]

Lay down some eggcrate as a first layer, then lay down your base rocks. (The rocks that touch the bottom.) Then, fill up your aquarium with the amount of sand or gravel you want. Lay the next set of rocks on your base rocks and give them a little wiggle to see how stable they are. For looks, it's better to lay big rocks first and progress with smaller rocks the higher you go.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/4881/bof009de3.jpg

[Pittbull]

cool rock photo david