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I am moving soon, and I want to take this time to re-design my 46gallon tank so it is propor for my Mbuna. When I was origionally planning the tank, it was for angels, so it has a lot of plants and only three caves, with natural looking gravel (its supposed to be a lake michigan design , but I will move everything to my other tanks)

I want to create a large, natural looking background of rocks and caves to make my fish happy I found a few different large aquarium rocks, but they were being sold for $1.85/lb Is there a cheaper way to buy rocks? (PS Outside gathering not an option... its private property of my landlord)

Inky

Hi,
Perhaps the least expensive way to get rocks is to go to
your local, large, hardware store such as Home Depot or
Lowe's. In their outdoor store where they sell landscaping
timbers, brick, etc., you will find all sorts of building
materials (rocks) many of them shatter when moved by the
public or forklifts and the pieces just lay around.
In many cases you can pick up a bucket or two of them for
nothing, or next to nothing.
The same situation exists with the quarry site if one is
near. Look in the phone book for places that sell
decorative rock for landscaping, again the pieces are
either free, or next to nothing.


Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Thanks a bunch !

Inky

I went the expensive route and purchased 2 25lb. boxes of "Florida moon rock" from CaribSea for about $25 each. Of course, shipping rock adds on a bit of expense, too, so if you can find rock locally, by all means grab it up. I like the moon rock because it's made from petrified shell beds and sediment, so there are whole shells throughout the rock. It breaks up pretty easily with just a hammer and a wedge so you can keep large pieces, or break it up into smaller chunks depending on your needs.

I also paired my moon rock with ceramic caves from www.cichlidbreeding.com. This helped ease up some of the weight and added more spacious caves than I could have made on my own, without adding much to the bulk of the structure.

Then I just siliconed rocks and caves together to create the formations I wanted. I did it in sections for ease of moving and so I can remove one section at a time for cleaning or repairs if necessary.

Here's a shot of the finished structure in a 20gal. tall tank:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/p1010068.html

I plan to move this structure and build one or two new ones to a 30gal. long tank in the next few weeks.

This may not have been helpful to you since it cost about $75 to build, but I'm really happy with the way it came out, and my cichlids really like it too.


edited to fix image link

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I'm in an area rock and driftwood is hard to come by. I went to the hardware stores and couldn't fine rocks, however I did find them at landscaping supply store. try there if you need enough they should break pallet for you.

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams