Aquarium Avalanche

[mygreengoldfish]

Today, as I was cleaning the algae off the glass, two of the bigger rocks at the top came loose and fell. One of them was les than a quarter of an inch from chrunching my new crocea clam. I am very lucky that I moved my clam to a new location or it definateley would have been cruched. The other came the same distance from rolling into my glass. The rocks also scared all of my fish half to death and I haven't seen them come out yet. Luckily, there were no known fatalities and nothing is harmed.

Right now my tank is a huge mess, the rock has been rearanged and the water is very murky. I am thinking of getting some underwater epoxy an glueing all the rocks together. Has anyone tried this and do they know if it works?

I'm a wreck right now because I watched all of this happened and my heart is still beating fast. I think I'm gonna go get something to drink and relax.

[Cearbhaill]

That's just about everyones worst nightmare- you're lucky you didn't crack some glass.

When you rescape just make totally, absolutley, incontravertedly positive that all your rocks are well seated on each other. I wiggled, pushed, and tested forever. I may be in the minority but I found aquascaping to be the most difficult part- I must have redone it four times, and the last session literally took me all day and I blew out an elbow in the process.
And if you are planning on any sort of sand moving critters you have to make sure that the rocks are seated on the glass bottom of the tank and not dependent on sand to support or steady them.

I also use a Mag-Float while I am aquascaping to make sure that it will easily pass by everywhere I want it to pass.

You can use tiny bits of epoxy to reinforce areas between rock, but stacking carefully remains your number one way to make sure this doesn't happen again- otherwise you'd be using 300 tubes of the stuff, and would never be able to remove a simgle rock for whatever reason.

And if you do use epoxy you'll need to turn your skimmer off for a day or so while it cures- epoxy drives skimmers nuts.

Good luck.
Just remember you are seating the rocks, not just balancing them on each other. It takes a long time to get it right, but you already know why it is vital.

[OrionGirl]

Agreed. I think just about everyone has experienced falling rocks at least once, for whatever reason--I know we've had some falling rocks the were the fault of a digging fish. And, had one rock slip out of my hand and almost crush a lionfish--he zipped out of the way and was cranky for a while afterwards. It's scary!

Best thing--push and tug on the rocks when you put them in. Make sure that the bottom levels are stable enough to support the top, and that the top level is well anchored. A few well placed zip strips can also help out, and be easily hidden.

[TKOS]

Does anyone use dowels (stainless steel or polyethylene) to attach rocks to each other?

[jamzwayne]

Does anyone use dowels (stainless steel or polyethylene) to attach rocks to each other?

Sounds like a good idea

[benjen]

I use 1/4" PVC pipes to attach rocks to each other, because I couldn't find plastic dowels at our home improvement/hardware stores. It was my wife's idea to use the piping. Seems to work quite well, just boil them for 10 minutes before using them. You can cut them to the appropriate length with garden shears or heavy duty scissors.

[mygreengoldfish]

It was partially my fault because the rock wasn't in the best position. It rested on three points but if you tilt it far enough it comes loose.

I was just wondering about epoxy because we occasionally have small earthquakes now and then and I think it would be a little too much for my rock. I was thinking of putting it around where the rocks contact eachother so if one were to slip, the epoxy would hold it up.