plastic cup

[cluster]

what about placing a plactic cup in the tank for the fish to hide in especially the ram and pleco i just dont know how to tell if its safe material

 

[yhbae]

what about placing a plactic cup in the tank for the fish to hide in especially the ram and pleco i just dont know how to tell if its safe material

Why not put tera cota pots instead?

 

[cluster]

when i was changing the ram into the 29gal i placed him in the cup to transfer and i placed the cup on bottom and got the idea...but since im not sure ill remove it they have a small dome inside

 

[yhbae]

Most plastic cups are inert so they should be safe - are they clear/semi-transparent type or is it painted with pictures? Also, how are you planning to keep them from floating?

 

[cluster]

i toook it back out but its clear type nothing painted.... i placed gravel inside to keep it on the ground....this is sort of related i was thinking about putting a bowl in there (dumb idea) for the tablets and pellets to drop in i HATE when they go between gravel and the fish cant get to it and i have to get it out before it creates waste

 

[yhbae]

For rams (and for other species), I've seen people who drill two holes into tera cota pots - one at the bottom side and one at the top (when placed upside down). Holes are slightly larger than the fishes themselves. Another approach is to cut them at the sides into two halves and place the harves into the gravel to create caves.

As for the gravel - you can try pool filter sand. This is much finer granuled than the regular aquarium gravels. Food mess doesn't get trapped in between them while it is coarse enough that gas doesn't get trapped either - it is one of the easiest form of substrate to maintain.

 

[cluster]

i seen ur community and 0g setup that is some nice setupps the sand i have been thinking about but i would wait till its scycled so i dont have to start over - the gravel can be placed in nylons and so on to remain cycle

 

[yhbae]

i seen ur community and 0g setup that is some nice setupps the sand i have been thinking about but i would wait till its scycled so i dont have to start over - the gravel can be placed in nylons and so on to remain cycle

Yup, you've got it...

Good luck!

 

[evilbunny]

Another approach is to cut them at the sides into two halves and place the harves into the gravel to create caves.

sorry, but jsut a question, how do you cut a terra cotta pot in half ??? i was thinking about taking an axe to it .. or saw it in half .. i'm not too good with that .. but yeah it'd be nice to know

 

[Becca]

i toook it back out but its clear type nothing painted.... i placed gravel inside to keep it on the ground....this is sort of related i was thinking about putting a bowl in there (dumb idea) for the tablets and pellets to drop in i HATE when they go between gravel and the fish cant get to it and i have to get it out before it creates waste

I've used plastic bowls to make "natural" caves out of lots of rock gravel with my substrate and, once you get them weighted down, they've always worked nicely. Couple of things first:

1) Do *not* place a container in the tank if it's in danger of floating to the top. I had a small container with a lid on it, weighted (or so I thought) to the bottom with some Aquarium Salt. I figured I'd slowly release teh salt into the tank and the fishies would love it. (Hey, I was a newb and I thought the dude at PetCo knew what he was talking about...) Anyway, while I was at work, my pleco swam into the container after the salt had dissolved out and when it floated up to the top and got filled with air, the poor guy died.

2) Make sure the cup or piece of plastic you're using doesn't have anything caked on, no chemicals used on it, etc. Plastic bowls and such are cheap, just buy a new one.

That having been said, if you're not opposed to them, I'd highly recommend some Tera Cotta pots over the plastic!

 

[isu_guy]

I was given a tera cotta pot that they had drilled holes in using a power drill with the attachment used to make holes for door knobs.

I used it like that for a while, then decided it was just too big of a pot for my tank and I took a hammer and as carefully as I could broke it in half (slowly tapped many times along one line until it started breaking under the stress lines that were created). I didn't mind that the edges weren't going to be very smooth. I hid the edges by pushing it into the gravel a bit, looks as if there is a couple pots half buried. The holes that were there add to the entrances/exits for the fish.

 

[yhbae]

Yes the above method will work ok - I've seen people chip at a pot until they get to the desirable shape.

Personally, I use the drill with the right bits as mentioned above. Wet the pot then start drilling carefully. If you use a small enough pot, it actually looks ok in a reasonable sized tank.