Caves?

[VirgoWolf]

I read somewhere that oscars like to have a cave of their own (they are cichlids afterall). Being that one of my oscars hides behind a piece of driftwood I have leaning up against the back of the aquarium all the time and he is starting to have trouble fitting, I am thinking I better get some better caves in there while I can.

I have 2 oscars and a pleco in my 75gal now, and hopefully my electric blue jack dempsey will be joining them again soon. (Mind you none of them are full grown) The EBJD has been a little aggressive with one of my oscars, so I have been letting the oscars grow a bit and reclaim the territory as theirs before I add the EBJD again. When I add him, I'd like to have more caves, which will hopefully lessen the aggression a bit.

So my task is making enough hiding places for 3 large fish and 1 or 2 medium sized plecos (might be adding another soon) without complete clutter and cahos making cleaning this messy tank nearly impossible. I have some nice driftwood pieces and not much rock inside, we do have alot of rock out around the pond and yard that I could burrow, but I have yet to get around to testing some of it to see if it's aquarium safe. I don't want to use many plants for obvious reasons, although I have a few in there. Then again I don't want to add too much rock weight and stacked rock would be hard to keep in place with these guys without some major siliconing.

So I am hoping you people with cichlids could help me figure out how to make my fish happy without sacraficing the ease of cleaning and viewing my tank and fish. Anyone have any ideas/tips?

 

[Orion]

The first thing that comes to mind is a smallish plastic tote. You can cut out one side so that it makes a cave. To better hide it in the tank you can use silicone to hold on gravel or sand or small rocks to give it more of a natural look. It would be rather difficult to just stack up enough rocks on their own for such large fish where they won't tare it down.

 

[VirgoWolf]

Humm... Maybe I could do something like that and warp it with a torch to make it more of a natural shape and then coat it with something .... Thanks for the idea. I am still open to any suggestions.

 

[FishGeek]

I like that idea cause you could really work with that and make it look really nice. It will also add height to the tank.

 

[Dadstank]

Have you ever thought of making "aragocrete" or something of the like?

REEF AQUARIUM FARMING NEWS 5 p 1

This is an excellent way of making your own base rock for saltwater but i'm sure you can use this for fresh also... and the size and shape is all up to you.
Actually you might end up sitting on the GARF.ORG site for a while lots of neat info!!!

 

[fish_chic]

i do like the plastic tote idea. you can use clays pots and just break the bottoms out of them and file them down with a metal file so there isn't any sharp edges (i did this is my tank) and use the silicon idea on them too. i know that the clat pots are not that heavy so you can use multilple ones and they still have some weight to them where your fish aren't going to move them around in your tank as easy as they would a plastic tote. just a suggestion. and if you do decide the pots come in all different sizes and they are not are to file the clay is soft enough to file them once broken.