A Sticky situation

[Lund]

I want to make some natural rock structures for my tank. The idea I have will require me to glue or fasten the rocks to gether. Is there an aquarium safe glue that I can use?

I have seen plants put into pea stone that's been glued together. That is what gave me my idea.

 

[Lobo.]

silicone, the stuff that holds the glass together...

 

[Lund]

It's the easy answers that I always miss. Thank you, I never even thought of using silicone.

 

[Ms.Bubbles]

Be sure to get the "aquarium safe silicone" available in pet stores. Regular silicone is not made for fish!

 

[Soulcoffr]

You can actually buy the silicone at home centers too, but you have to make sure it says 100% silicone and NO anti fungal/mildew and no latex. It's far cheaper than the six bucks you'll pay for a little tube at the LFS.

There are also aquarium safe two-part epoxies that are very good at putting rock structures together. It's sandable when cured and it comes in, i think, grey and coral pink. http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produ...ll&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&N=2004&Nty=1

Epoxy is much stronger than silicone and looks more natural if you sculpt it right. If you goof with the silicone, you can definitely tell it's there.

 

[Bristlenose Chuck]

After messing around last night with siliconeing rocks I found out that silicone does not stick to rocks very well. I was a little disapointed. I think next time I will use the epoxy stick.

 

[joeyg2100]

You can go to any local home store (ie Home Depot, Menards) and get the same aquarium silicone for $2-$3 cheaper than the pet store. I got a tube for $3 at Menards.

 

[Soulcoffr]

The problem with using silicone to glue rock structures together is that unless you have a lot of surface to bond together, the silicone is very weak. It's like, if you took two pieces of glass, put a glob of silicone on the flat side of one piece and smooshed the other piece down on that, you'd be hard pressed to ever get them apart again without breaking the glass once it cured.

On the other hand, if you used the silicone to glue them together perpendicular to each other, you couldn't manage to get it to stand upright, let alone stay glued together. Same problem with rocks, they usually have very irregular surfaces, so a putty with strong bonding properties is going to work much better than a gel with weak bonding properties. The putty fills the spaces and bonds the two stones together, much like mortar cement, but with easier workability and a quicker cure.