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All of my rocks have come from one of tho stone and gravel yards within 10 minutes of me. They know me because I show up with a couple of 5 gallon buckets and wander the yard for what I want.Mostly I buy river rounds and slate scraps. The have a lage area with flagstones and in handling they tend to break off all sorts of pieces. I am after the scraps.

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River rounds come in colors, esppecially red and bluish. They are a great way to add some color to a tank, especially ones wiht few or no plants.

One of my favorite things to make from scraps of slate and a bit if silicone or epoxy are cover hutches fro fry and smaller bottom dwellers. The key is one or usually two triangular shards and then smaller scraps to make legs or separators. The end result is a narrow opening structure that fits into the back corners of the tanks and provides great hiding places in areas of the tank we normally reserve for filter intakes etc. Sometime I make then two stories.

The stone and gravel tards are much less expensive and offer a pretty nice selection. I always take a sample of something I am not sure of and the do the acid test to make sure it is OK to use in tanks.
 
Wills said:
I'm fairly certain I'm going to stick to Mbuna but got quite a big list of fish I like - hoping to get 4-5 species maybe 6, advice so far has been 20-30 fish depending on who I talk to. Thinking if I did 2-4 species of true Mbuna and then an Acei and a Lab species it will help increase the numbers safely.

I've been getting really mixed feelings on how to go ahead with this tank mainly to do with the rocks. With it being a rimless tank on a frame-style stand bit panicked at the thought of putting in 50kg of rock in there... So I have been weighing up selling this second hand tank and going down another route but feels a bit of a faff...

I've been trying to work out how to make my own rocks as a lot of the common materials used seem to be from the US market and not available in the UK - Drylok for example. I've found this, which seems like it would work as a top coat, though I'm not sure how it would look underwater. https://antel.co.uk/products/a1-pond-paint The same company also does an epoxy concrete product in 5 litre tubs. My plan for this approach is/was to use expandable pond foam layered over a small rock, carved into shape, cover it in the epoxy concrete and then add some details with acrylic paint with a final layer of the pond paint.

The pond foam is £20 per tube (think I'd need 2), epoxy concrete is £30 for 5 litres which covers 500cm square to 5cm depth and the pond paint is £20 for 1 litre and is designed to coat a small pond.

I've also finally found a landscaping place not too far away that sells big black textural rocks, so there are some good options. They mainly specialise in selling online in crates of 50-70 rocks but I might ring them to see if I could buy 10 if I went to pick them up (and preferably pick them out in person).

But then (and I think this is my best option). I found these on Oliver Knotts store, which are called Coober Rocks from a brand called Hobby. The biggest one is about 30cm tall and 20x20cm wide/deep, the others two are about 20cm tall and 15x10cm wide/deep. All four sides are really different and I may be able to combine them in different ways so you can't tell - eg if I got 9 of them. I'm also hoping they look real enough so I might find a real rock (at a smaller size) - from the pictures I'm wondering about black lava rock or maybe dark seriyu stone? I've managed to also find these on Amazon and ordered a set of three (one of each) for £65 - if I like them I'll keep them and order more from Olli Betta but went with Amazon as I can return them easy if they are not right - they should be here by this Friday.
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Wills
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Those rocks from Amazon look nice. Now that you mentioned it, I probably have around 30-40kg of rocks in the tank. It’s spread over a large area so the pressure on the bottom glass is low, the tank sits on a sturdy timber base so I see no risk of the glass cracking under pressure. It’s a 4’ x 18” x 18” with no plastic surrounds at the top or bottom.

I have 10 cichlids in it. Would like a few more but decided not to as that would mean more frequent water changes. Currently, it’s one water change a week or a fortnight, or once in 3 weeks if I’m away.

If you keep yellow lab, you may find that the male Pearl of Likoma (Melanochromis Joanjohnsonae) provides a better colour contrast than the acei.
 
I am going to look seriously at that foam rock idea. I've seen some beautiful work over the years, and like the explanation offered. Great stuff, and thanks!

I've never bought a rock. I bought a field guide to rocks and minerals, and have been known to stop beside dynamited highway cuts, or along beaches (where it is legal to grab rocks, within reason, here). Slate, basalt - they are everywhere in my rocky world. Even when I was an inner city dweller, I ended up out in nature occasionally.
 
Don't know what the legality in Europe is but why don't you just collect some stones. Great Britain has a number of limestone areas, but also slate, and gneiss rock areas, all could be large stones for your aquarium. With Mbuna's you don't have to worry if the rock is calcareous or not.
 
Thanks everyone great ideas here :) Unfortunately, it is illegal to take rocks and stuff out of habitats here if you get caught of course. A couple of added trouble is that most of the UKs waterways are in terrible conditions at the moment due to the water companies dumping raw sewage through them - you can see it everywhere and the resulting algae and green slime growth that occurs too. I did see some good rocks at a beach I went to at the weekend - very likely limestone and I've seen some great chalk rocks too but you cant get the car anywhere near and again you'd look a bit suspect taking them away... though if you stuck a hi-vis on surely you could just wheel a barrow down haha!

GaryE said:
I am going to look seriously at that foam rock idea. I've seen some beautiful work over the years, and like the explanation offered. Great stuff, and thanks!

I've never bought a rock. I bought a field guide to rocks and minerals, and have been known to stop beside dynamited highway cuts, or along beaches (where it is legal to grab rocks, within reason, here). Slate, basalt - they are everywhere in my rocky world. Even when I was an inner city dweller, I ended up out in nature occasionally.
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Let me know if you do it, it would be interesting to see. I think easier in North America too as you should be able to get drylock which is all you'd need with the foam. I got a message back from the company that make the paints I mentioned above and they said I'd be able to paint PU foam with their pond paint so I could carve the foam, paint it with acrylic and then add a layer of the clear pond paint.

The Hobby rocks should start getting delivered tomorrow - will post updates when they get here :)

Wills
 
2 of the 3 that I ordered have arrived and... I'm not sure. First reaction when I opened the boxes were they are smaller than I was anticipating (which was doubly annoying as they came in a huge Amazon box...).

There are a lot of pros to them. They do look pretty realistic, a lot like Seriyu stone especially the dark ones, the are very unique from all 4 sides so you could buy a lot of them and have them face different ways and different directions and it wouldnt look uniform and pretty natural. They are very light, 0 risk of them ever causing an issue with the glass like big rocks could...

The cons to them - bit smaller than I was expecting so I'd need more than I was hoping for a set of 3 rocks is about £65 but the biggest one is about half of that so you might be able to bulk out with the smaller, cheaper ones.

Photos to show rocks in the tank (and also photo proof I do have a big tank waiting.... :( )

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Rocks2.png


I have finally found a landscaping place near me! Not a million miles away by any stretch and part of the world I go to on business a bit anyway. They sell black limestone 30-40cm and the black mountain rock 20-30cm that I've been looking for, only catch is they are mainly an online business and prefer to sell by the crate but did say I can make an appointment to go down. Not 100% on the cost but it would be cheaper than the fake rocks above.

Big concern with real, heavy rock is that its a rimless tank on a metal frame with no support under the middle of the glass... the intention for the tank is to be aquascaped and it is from a marine brand - Evolution Aqua so presumably its fine. I mean it is 12mm glass... but... what if... This is the scenario above I mentioned about selling this tank and getting something with more traditional construction? But then that voids the advantage of these rocks being the cheaper option.

My concoction of foam rocks is looking interesting again though, time intensive but enjoyable and in theory doable...

Wills
 
Whats even the point of having photo shop if not for nonsense like this... I think this works out at about 9 pairs of the two rocks I have so far which were about £40 for the two so that would be a mere £360...



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Decision made going with these artificial Coober Rocks. Found a few more on Amazon warehouse at good prices so ordered them for now and will assess how many I want to buy. Thinking of getting a few kg of something like lava rock to put in as the base layer.
 
about 25 years ago a friend gave a bunch of rocks. they were white and i assumed they were marble. they were shaped just right to make a copy of Stonehenge. they were 8 to 9 inches high and i called mine Fish-Henge. should have drilled and pinned them because they would fall down every now and then. they looked great in the 125-gallon tank.
 
lottabubbles said:
about 25 years ago a friend gave a bunch of rocks. they were white and i assumed they were marble. they were shaped just right to make a copy of Stonehenge. they were 8 to 9 inches high and i called mine Fish-Henge. should have drilled and pinned them because they would fall down every now and then. they looked great in the 125-gallon tank.
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Sounds great!

I've ordered 7 of these so far, should be here by Monday so will see what I can make :)

Wills
 
davros said:
Interesting rocks - see a bunch of ferrets or lemurs staring at me :)
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I know right! I saw them as owls, it is just the picture though but I cant see it as much in real life!
 
davros said:
Yes owls! Do the rocks actually and naturally repeat themselves like that?
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These are artificial rocks and the pics with the bigger formations I've made in Photoshop to see roughly how many I might need :)They come in a range of 3 so soon I'll have 3 of type 1 and 2 and then I've got one of type 3 coming soon which I've not seen yet but I'll be able to work out when it gets here, I've got 5 more rocks arriving over the weekend.

One small problem with these is that they are hollow and I seem to remember that hollow artificial decor can cause problems in the long term. I'm thinking of siliconing the ends up and part-filling them with sand before sealing them shut. I'm also going to silicone them together as well as they are super light so could get knocked a bit.

Wills :)
 
Wills said:
One small problem with these is that they are hollow and I seem to remember that hollow artificial decor can cause problems in the long term. I'm thinking of siliconing the ends up and part-filling them with sand before sealing them shut. I'm also going to silicone them together as well as they are super light so could get knocked a bit.

Wills :)
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I don't really know but would think that hollow deco could cause the possibility of a lack of water flow causing pockets of stagnation. I don't worry about this aspect in relation to my fake hollow tree trunk that I use as a cave system as my under gravel filtration causes water flow through the thing. LOL! NO! I will probably never stop promoting under gravel at any opportunity. ;)
 
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