African Tank Decor

[tanker]

I am thinking about taking down my 100gal reef and going African Cichlids. I am looking for an alternative to all those HEAVY rocks I must get. Someone said to get lava rock which is lighter, but I do not like the look of lava rock.

Still want to build caves, ect. but do not want the weight.

 

[Coler]

tufa rock is great - relatively light, easy to build with.

Thread in my sig is my tank and that's what I used (ignore the first few pics though - those were my first attempts.

Substrate is crushed coral, plants are fake.

 

[toddnbecka]

You can occaisonally find plastic or resin ornaments that look reasonably realistic. Also consider shale or slate, relatively thin and flat, good for stacking to create multiple layers of caves/cover.

 

[tanker]

Tufa rocks looks good, is it a lot lighter then regular rock??

toddnbecka --- Is there a plastic rock??

 

[Coler]

generally yes.

I've seen plastic decor looks like white rock with holes and caverns all through it in my LFS. Could look nice. If I did that I would have black gravel and black background.

 

[jamthoyoung]

You can also get rock that has many holes in it (like texas holey) which looks nice. See the white rocks:

 

[tanker]

Some good ideas so far. Thanks. I am tearing down my SW reef now. Its going to take a while to get rid of all my coral, LR, LS ect.

I live in California (USA) earth-quake country. Love lots of rocks for my fish, but do not want the weight in the tank. My FW plant-tank has natural gravel, but the pics of the black sand looks GREAT. May try that too.

 

[Kegger22]

You could always just purchase a simple plastic eggcrate to put on the bottom uner your substrate to distributr the weight of the rock evenly across the whole bottom if you're worried about all the weight in one place if you're stacking

 

[Weezer]

Is driftwood an option for you...?

 

[reptileguy2727]

Driftwood does not really go along with Lake Malawi biotope (which is what I am assuming is meant by African cichlids). You could use PVC pipes as a base and put rocks on and around them to hide them.

It also depends on what type of fish you want to do. Most people are thinking of mbunas when they say Afican cichlids. These do require a lot of rockwork. I like the peacocks a lot better. Much less aggressive and even more colorful. The peacocks need a few piles of rocks, but not a tank full like the mbunas. Sand is much better. It is more natural and does not trap a lot of debris the way gravel or crushed coral will.

Here is a pic of my 150 peacock tank. There are more pics in my Photobucket page in my signature.

And here are a few of the peacocks.