catfish cave

[bryan.olsen]

hey , i have a 16" albino channelcat in a 210gal. and i want to make a nice looking somewhat natural cave that can house the beast, i was thinkin clay or ceramics but i though id check out what some felow monsterfishkeepers had in mind for somthin like this. i want it fairly good sized like 20-25"deep and maby as wide as the tank. id like to install it at one end but i want to be able to remove it easily for cleaning. i donno any ideas would be cool.
thanks

 

[WolfFisho1]

make a cave out of slate and dont put any substarte on under the cave then glue the same substrate on the top

 

[macktab]

I have a similar problem. My pleco is just about 12" now and needs a longer cave. I thought about using 3" corrugated ABS pipe, cut in half along length to about 18". It's black and I like the idea of glueing substrate to it, maybe it would keep it weighed down. What type of glue would you suggest for the slate?

 

[WolfFisho1]

you can use fish safe silicone. what ever you can find that is fish safe. you could use it on the piping to

 

[macktab]

thanks wolf, nice n' simple idea!

 

[WolfFisho1]

your welcome

i have heard of people not puting on one of the walls on the cave. so then they can see inside the tunnel easily. and they tape constuction paper on the side and take it off when they want to

i am bad at wording things

 

[WeeNe858]

translation: you lean the piping against the glass wall so you can see in.. and then take the paper and cover that area for the fishs privacy and remove it for viewing

 

[bryan.olsen]

hey thanks , i think i wanna look into making a clay cave and maby sealing it with some sort of fish safe paint or somthing,
i currently have somthing like what your talking about i just wanted to try somthing on the other side of the tank. i think it would be a fun project for a rainy day.
thanks alot for the tips and the schenmatics

 

[Dr Joe]

I used a plastic tunnel/mountain for a large scale train set and weighted it down substrate siliconed to it, just make sure the paint is waterproof or re-paint it yourself.

Or you can make one like they make the backgrounds...out of great-stuff spray foam and carve it yourself. Do a search on here for some great examples.

Dr Joe

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