My DIY PVC Cave Project

Great job! Looks fine in there!
 
WOW

I am so glad I looked at this, I am trying to find the best way to get/make caves for my albino sharks. I am definitely going to make a tower of different sizes. what would be the best way to incorporate 5 or 6 "caves" together so that all could wind around eachother a bit. I wanted to make a mountain in the middle of my new 55gal, but I wanted to have some caves going throughout it. I am so glad you posted this, now all I have to do is figure out how to make it all look like one "rock".
paper mache? lol:eek:
any ideas???
 
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I am so glad I looked at this, I am trying to find the best way to get/make caves for my albino sharks. I am definitely going to make a tower of different sizes. what would be the best way to incorporate 5 or 6 "caves" together so that all could wind around eachother a bit. I wanted to make a mountain in the middle of my new 55gal, but I wanted to have some caves going throughout it. I am so glad you posted this, now all I have to do is figure out how to make it all look like one "rock".
paper mache? lol:eek:
any ideas???

Theres a couple options that come to mind for your project. First you could get a bunch of pvc pipes and glue them all together on top of each other to build a "mountain", then once that has cured you could cover the entire thing with substrate or rocks as I did to give it uniformity.

Secondly, but probably more time consuming as I am now figuring out. I am building a whole 3D background underwater filter system out of styrofoam. You could get a block of styrofoam, carve out what you want, then cover it with cement, even add in some cement paint when mixing the cement, then after the cement has dried completely cover it in marine epoxy to seal any toxins inside. Here's a link on doing this type of work if your interested. (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_background.php)

Whatever you decide to do I wish you the best of luck and can't wait to see what you come up with!
 
so the acrylic paint, is that ok to use by itself on the PVC?
if I wanted to paint the inside black would I then have to cover paint with marine epoxy?

most likely I will just be buying the black pipe, but there will probably be a cool piece that is white, you know how it is...

anyway, I am a worry-wort so if anyone has used something and knows for sure I would be really happy.

thanks again.:)
 
So I finally went to home depot to look at all of the PVC and what not in the plumbing section.
and well, since I am a new member to the aquaria hobby.
I already have the albino sharks and I don't think they will be much bigger (height-wise_ than 1-2" so I could get away with maybe a 3" PVC, OR would you stick to 4"?
also would it be bad if it was a particularly long cave? like 1-2' long? or just little shallw caves?
(I was thiking about a cave that was cutaway so you could see inside of it from one-side)
 
Pretty much anything will work for the different PVC peices, the only thing that I would be weary of in going for something over 6 inchs or so in lenght is the possibility of a fish going in their to die, depending what all you have in your tank this could present a big effort in order to get him out. But, like I said, anyhting will work.
 
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