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I am planning on building some rock piles in my 55g for my cichlids to hide in and i was wondering if rocks from a plant nursury were safe to add to your tank. Which ones are best?

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

I would be very cautious about using rocks from a nursery. I would have to assume that a large amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals are used there. If the rocks are porous, I would think you would have a rough time getting those chemicals out of the rocks. If you do use rocks from the yard or outside, boil them thouroughly. I have used lace rock in my mbuna tank. I like the look and they stack securely. I have granite and lace rock in my hap tank. I boiled each rock for about 10 minutes.

So where do you recommend getting rocks from??

Any u just boiled them on a normal oven?

I dont have any lakes nearby...

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

I have got (free) several small rocks from a very large landscape gardeners they have rocks by the tons in fact one pile is over 6 tons. Many might not be suitable for aquarium use.

Q Where do you think the LFS get their supplies from then?
Possibly the same location as the landscape gardeners or from bulk collecters/distributers.

Have a look in [link=My Profile]http://
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Keith

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Keith are you saying rocks from a landscaping place are safe to use in aqauriums?
Do you need to do anything such as boiling them to make them safe?
This is my first attempt at aquascaping (other then driftwood) so i dont really know much about this.

Thanks for all your help!

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

We bought granite rocks and large blocks of slate from our local garden centre (who also has an aquatics shop).
We scrubbed the rocks then put them in a bucket of hot salt water and left them for a few days. We split the slate blocks into narrow strips and then treated them as we did the other rocks.
We have had no problems with any of the rocks we bought and the fish love the numerous caves we made by tiering the rocks and using the slate as roofs.
We have a few different colours of each rock so we put similar colours together and now the fish also seem to use the colours as boundary marks for their territories (which we had hoped for).

Thanks for your reply cichlid crazy ...

so it is safe to use gardening type rocks (i might stick to granite and slate as you did and i know they're safe ... do they affect the water in any way?)

so i should soak them in a bucket of hot salty water for a few days after scrubbing...

thanks! cant wait to decorate! /:'

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

After you get the rocks test them to see if they will affect the pH by dropping some vinegar or acid solution on them, if they don't fizz they won't affect your pH. Test the tank's pH for a couple of days after adding the rocks as well. If they do affect the pH you will want to know by how much. In a cichlid tank it wouldn't hurt the fish if the rocks made pH go up, it would mean less pH raising buffers that you would need to add. Some people use limestone rocks for just that reason.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

thanks for your reply luvmykrib!

i still havent bought any as yet but was planning to in the next few days! i will keep an eye out for limestone
It seems like it would be a good idea to add to a cichlid tank

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them