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The premade caves at pet stores are so expensive, around $12 for the tiniest ones! So... post your cheap cave ideas here! Here are two that look pretty neat:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_caves.php

http://www.petfish.net/diy_coconut_caves.htm

Cheap cave ideas:

Terracotta pots
Coconut shells
PVC piping (with or without gravel siliconed to the outside)
Slate or other flattish rocks, stacked and/or siliconed together
Stacked driftwood

Top half from a 100 pack cd spindle cut in half. Silicone glue applied then gravel or rocks fitted ontop.

^_^




[hr width='40%']"Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness
I need to calculate,what creates my own madness...
and I am waiting for disaster"

I cut a plastic plant pot in half, and it worked fine. But I had to put a rock on it, because it kept floating! Terra cotta would have been better in hindsight (but the plastic was easier to cut!).

I cut an old plastic pot down to size and siliconed aquarium gravel to it and put it in, they love it

You can also use glass bottles as well.

I used a miniature Cleveland Indians batting helmet. They turn them upside-down and serve ice cream in them at Jacob's Field.

Cut an arch in the back of it, and a hole towards the top on the side to give an extra exit path as well as allow some light in the cave. For weight, I just siliconed some extra gravel underneath the brim. Works perfectly.

It fits nice with my "Jacob's Field" tank - helmet cave, blue and red gravel, Albert Belle and Jim Thome Starting Line-Up Figures. Soon to add an actual photo of Jacob's field for the background.

Too bad I don't have a digital camera or I could post pics of my ice cream cave on my website for all to see!

right now i'm using 2 huge pieces of granite (~40lbs each) and 3 rocks lined up w/ a big piece of driftwood laying over them to make 3 caves,

and what's a good way to cut terracatta (SP) pots?

Daka<<<<

terra cotta is pretty fragile, not sure what you could use to cut it. i tried breaking one in half and i ended up siliconing most of it back together......didn't really look to nice because you could see the silicone lines. rofl

terra cotta can be easy to cut if you have a Dremel hand rotary tool. there's a special drill bit for it (I want to say a diamond bit) that actually grinds the cuts into the pot slowly. then you can trim the sharp edges with one of the smoothing stone bits supplied with the Dremel

is the cutting thing expencive?

Dremels are by far the best tool ever invented. They are small, and come with so many different attachments, and they work great for sooo many projects - especially fish projects cause aquariums are on such a small scale.

Dremels come in different varieties. Some plug in the wall, some are battery-powered. Some are two speed only (10K and 35K rpm) while some are variable speed.

The cheapest, the two speed corded rotary is about $40US. I got one for Christmas but returned it and paid $20 more for a variable speed - well worth the upgrade.

Only $60 for a great tool for everything. The variable speed one also comes with 75 different attachments. The extra attachments are where they make their money. Some of the fancier bits can get expensive - worth the cost if you use 'em though.

Hope that all helps. Any other questions let me know.

P.S. Somebody chained up my bike to theirs, so I used my Dremel - cut right through their steel cord. It was great!