I was wondering the best way about going about setting up rocks in my cichlid tank because they seem to get scared alot and ive been told to add alot more rocks...
any ideas????
CICHLID ROCK SETUP
5 posts
-
rcgman35055364 - Posts: 27
- Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:44 pm
yeah check my tanks out. they love the round rocks that i stacked. as they get bigger though they will knock them over and you will have to rearrange them every so often.
-
vwfan79 - Posts: 80
- Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 8:20 pm
you can look at my tank to get a picture of what I'm about to explain..... basically you want to stack your rocks in such a way that provides lots a caves and tunnels for the fish to swim in and out of and explore.....keep the cave idea in mind when stacking but also think about making sure it is sturdy and theres no danger of falling rocks.......also I make sure there are no rocks touching the glass, for two reasons the fear of it scratching or cracking and also for cleaning, this way you don't have spots of algae build up.....hope this helps
-
zambize - Posts: 401
- Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:14 pm
My cichlids love to dig around the rocks and will knock them over, even my young cichlids who are no bigger than 3" so make sure they can't knock them into the glass or you could have a real big mess on your hands.
Z
Z
-
dizzcat - Posts: 648
- Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:30 am
Another idea for caves is to buy some PVC pipe and cut them into 4" pieces. I have black ones (its easier to hide black) that I put underneath the rocks for the extra caves. I use lava/lace rock, which stays together real well. Its like putting a puzzle together. When putting the rock down, get it as deep in the substrate as you can, then push on it to make sure its stable. These fish will dig a cave under a rock pile, all the way down to the bare glass causing it all to come tumbling down. I do find pipes floating at the surface at least once a week because someone has dug so much they dislodged it from under the rocks.
Underneath my substrate I have plastic canvas so that when they do dig all the way down, there is not bare glass exposed. I just feel safer with it, knowing a rock will hit that instead of bare glass so it wont scratch. Right now there is all kinds of spots where you can see the plastic from them digging all the way down, and this is just 3 days after the last water change when I fixed the sand! They are definite diggers! I try to keep my rock piles no higher than half way so that there are less to fall. If you lean the rock against the glass it puts pressure points on that spot and over time it will weaken that spot. Look at my tank pictures in my profile to see the pipes and how I stack mine to make tunnels and caves.
You can also glue some together with silicone 1 so that they will not come crashing down when a fish digs under the whole pile. I did that with my round rocks like RC has, but then you can't make different kinds of piles. But it is safer to glue them. You can get silicone at the lfs, or at a store like Home Depot. Just make sure its GE silicone 1, not 2 or 3 and make sure there is nothing added to it to prevent mold. Let it cure for 3 days before adding to the tank. It will harden within a couple hours, but its toxic for a couple days (you can smell when it is! Whew!)
Underneath my substrate I have plastic canvas so that when they do dig all the way down, there is not bare glass exposed. I just feel safer with it, knowing a rock will hit that instead of bare glass so it wont scratch. Right now there is all kinds of spots where you can see the plastic from them digging all the way down, and this is just 3 days after the last water change when I fixed the sand! They are definite diggers! I try to keep my rock piles no higher than half way so that there are less to fall. If you lean the rock against the glass it puts pressure points on that spot and over time it will weaken that spot. Look at my tank pictures in my profile to see the pipes and how I stack mine to make tunnels and caves.
You can also glue some together with silicone 1 so that they will not come crashing down when a fish digs under the whole pile. I did that with my round rocks like RC has, but then you can't make different kinds of piles. But it is safer to glue them. You can get silicone at the lfs, or at a store like Home Depot. Just make sure its GE silicone 1, not 2 or 3 and make sure there is nothing added to it to prevent mold. Let it cure for 3 days before adding to the tank. It will harden within a couple hours, but its toxic for a couple days (you can smell when it is! Whew!)