Greetings,
I was encourage to come join this forum and share by someone. I've already done a video about this on my channel, but i feel like this would be a decent post and some possibly interesting content for the forum. So here we go!
The Cave Tank started because i had been keeping a juvenile Gold Calvus in a small tank, and I knew he was going to be needing an upgrade soon. Paulie is his name, and he was notorious for his grumpy personality and hiding in his little cave all the time. (my black calvus is much more social, strange... anyways) I had already been toying with the idea of creating a much more custom cave structure than just your average rock pile and cool driftwood. I used a small square glass planter to make something similar in my betta's tank, and it worked, so i went ahead and scaled up the idea.
This is the current state of the tank as of the typing of this post. We aren't going to spend any time right now talking about how dirty it is and how i should have cleaned it before taking a photo.
As you can see, the left side of the tank is a large cave, with a raised planter type of area resting on top of the cave. The sand path that starts on the right side flows into the cave. The driftwood caves on the right side are still a work in progress, i keep re-arranging them. Anyway, back to the How To.
I made mock ups of everything beforehand using styrofoam to get an idea of where i wanted things and what it was going to look like. Once i was decided (weeks later) i went ahead and got started.
The back wall support was created using a piece of light diffuser. I needed a solid support structure to hold the weight of the plants, rocks, and substrate that were going to be on top. But i also needed it to look like a rock wall. I covered it in silicone, pebbles, and lava rock. When you look inside the cave from the front view, it truly appears to be the back of a cave wall.
The rest of the lava rock cave supports were created meticulously by siliconing different sections together. Hide the silicone seams by sprinkling lava rock dust on them!!!!
I also used a 90 degree PVC elbow to created a swim-thru cave structure. This also served to help strengthen the front right corner of the raised area, which obviously needed to have the strongest support and also needed to serve the purpose of disguising the majority of the work so that it would just look like a big lumpy rock cave in the end. A lot of what you see in the above two images is actually multiple small clumps of lava rock. I made little sections basically, and i was able to arrange them in different ways modularly to experiment and find the best way. The main portion of the structure is siliconed and permanent, but there are also parts that are not and were just arranged in place to appear to be permanent.
As the project moved along, i formed the plan of making the sand path. This would be the sandy and cave area and the other sections were going to be planted with substrate.
The plan was to have dwarf sag carpet on the left parts and have some tall plants on the right.
But fishmar!! Fishmar! what about the flow problems you are going to have with your cave??? Yes my son, i know. This is why we will place a powerhead to move water through the cave, no worries!
Here's a couple more shots of it when it finally started coming together.
I was really happy with the driftwood i used to silicone to the glass there and hide the heater, but it ended up not holding. Hence the constant re-arrangement of the driftwood that i mentioned previously.
You can also see in these shots how the PVC swim-thru pipe was disguised into the structure. For my later projects after this i have been disguising them better, but i learned a lot with this one.
And finally here is the tank when i first flooded it.
This is a 50 gallon tank, and i learned SO much working on this project. The flow issues were the part that i definitely underestimated.
I solved the flow going through the cave before setting it up, but i did not account for the lack of flow on the raised planted area.
This is why i ended up having to put an extra filter hanging off the front of the tank until i spend money on a better solution.
Also due to the poor flow i am dealing with very annoying algae issues in this tank, ongoing for some time now!!
So if you do get inspired by this project, please think about the flow more than i did !!!!
ALSO *** think VERY hard about your species choice, because GOOD LUCK catching them out of there!!
I had to remove a synodontis petricola from this tank and i am still traumatized by the experience.
Overall this was such a fun project and it really inspired me for some other stuff i am currently working on in the Fishroom.
I also have a video about this on my youtube channel and IG but the forum seems to have slapped my wrist the couple times that i tried to link to the channel, so i am not sure on the rules.
If you would like to look it up, you can search for Fishmar Fishroom.
I hope that you all enjoyed this. I certainly did and i learned a lot making this.
Here is a few more pictures of the tank in various stages, it has been running for a few months now.
EDIT: here we go i figured out how to embed the video congratulations fishmar
I was encourage to come join this forum and share by someone. I've already done a video about this on my channel, but i feel like this would be a decent post and some possibly interesting content for the forum. So here we go!
The Cave Tank started because i had been keeping a juvenile Gold Calvus in a small tank, and I knew he was going to be needing an upgrade soon. Paulie is his name, and he was notorious for his grumpy personality and hiding in his little cave all the time. (my black calvus is much more social, strange... anyways) I had already been toying with the idea of creating a much more custom cave structure than just your average rock pile and cool driftwood. I used a small square glass planter to make something similar in my betta's tank, and it worked, so i went ahead and scaled up the idea.
This is the current state of the tank as of the typing of this post. We aren't going to spend any time right now talking about how dirty it is and how i should have cleaned it before taking a photo.
As you can see, the left side of the tank is a large cave, with a raised planter type of area resting on top of the cave. The sand path that starts on the right side flows into the cave. The driftwood caves on the right side are still a work in progress, i keep re-arranging them. Anyway, back to the How To.
I made mock ups of everything beforehand using styrofoam to get an idea of where i wanted things and what it was going to look like. Once i was decided (weeks later) i went ahead and got started.
The back wall support was created using a piece of light diffuser. I needed a solid support structure to hold the weight of the plants, rocks, and substrate that were going to be on top. But i also needed it to look like a rock wall. I covered it in silicone, pebbles, and lava rock. When you look inside the cave from the front view, it truly appears to be the back of a cave wall.
The rest of the lava rock cave supports were created meticulously by siliconing different sections together. Hide the silicone seams by sprinkling lava rock dust on them!!!!
I also used a 90 degree PVC elbow to created a swim-thru cave structure. This also served to help strengthen the front right corner of the raised area, which obviously needed to have the strongest support and also needed to serve the purpose of disguising the majority of the work so that it would just look like a big lumpy rock cave in the end. A lot of what you see in the above two images is actually multiple small clumps of lava rock. I made little sections basically, and i was able to arrange them in different ways modularly to experiment and find the best way. The main portion of the structure is siliconed and permanent, but there are also parts that are not and were just arranged in place to appear to be permanent.
As the project moved along, i formed the plan of making the sand path. This would be the sandy and cave area and the other sections were going to be planted with substrate.
The plan was to have dwarf sag carpet on the left parts and have some tall plants on the right.
But fishmar!! Fishmar! what about the flow problems you are going to have with your cave??? Yes my son, i know. This is why we will place a powerhead to move water through the cave, no worries!
Here's a couple more shots of it when it finally started coming together.
I was really happy with the driftwood i used to silicone to the glass there and hide the heater, but it ended up not holding. Hence the constant re-arrangement of the driftwood that i mentioned previously.
You can also see in these shots how the PVC swim-thru pipe was disguised into the structure. For my later projects after this i have been disguising them better, but i learned a lot with this one.
And finally here is the tank when i first flooded it.
This is a 50 gallon tank, and i learned SO much working on this project. The flow issues were the part that i definitely underestimated.
I solved the flow going through the cave before setting it up, but i did not account for the lack of flow on the raised planted area.
This is why i ended up having to put an extra filter hanging off the front of the tank until i spend money on a better solution.
Also due to the poor flow i am dealing with very annoying algae issues in this tank, ongoing for some time now!!
So if you do get inspired by this project, please think about the flow more than i did !!!!
ALSO *** think VERY hard about your species choice, because GOOD LUCK catching them out of there!!
I had to remove a synodontis petricola from this tank and i am still traumatized by the experience.
Overall this was such a fun project and it really inspired me for some other stuff i am currently working on in the Fishroom.
I also have a video about this on my youtube channel and IG but the forum seems to have slapped my wrist the couple times that i tried to link to the channel, so i am not sure on the rules.
If you would like to look it up, you can search for Fishmar Fishroom.
I hope that you all enjoyed this. I certainly did and i learned a lot making this.
Here is a few more pictures of the tank in various stages, it has been running for a few months now.
EDIT: here we go i figured out how to embed the video congratulations fishmar
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