Rocks are heavy!

[Scottw68TN]

I'm going to start a 55 gallon African Cichlid tank natural gravel and a load of rock. Should I use anything under the substrate? Foam? Styrofoam? Any horror stories on rocks being to heavy for a tank.

 

[shawmutt]

No horror stories yet...knock on wood. I just used eggcrate on the bottom of the tank, put a few big flat rocks on the bottom, and then added sand. The big rocks act as an excellent base when the rocks need to be moved, and believe me, the rocks will need to be moved.

 

[Scottw68TN]

Shawmutt I knew you would be on this one. The egg crate doesn't get all nasty? maybe be a good place for anaerobic bacteria? I was going to use pebbles for the substrate not the sand / argonite, Should I reconsider this for buffering / ph. I will use limestone and portland sand caves. My water will hover around 7.6 on its own. I am still worried about piling them too high but see the saltys reef tanks and think it must be ok.

 

[peterp]

I used eggcrate and filled it with 40 pounds of cichlid-mix from big als, it is a black gravel with shells and stuff broken up in it.
I then covered this with 40 pounds of aggronite and 60 pounds of silica sand.
The aggronite/silica sand can be stirred up as needed.

Yes rocks weigh a lot, so does the water have a look at what other cichlid people have done, some tanks look like they have an awful lot of rocks in them.
Cichlid-forum Tanks

 

[shawmutt]

Shawmutt I knew you would be on this one. The egg crate doesn't get all nasty? maybe be a good place for anaerobic bacteria?

The eggcrate is covered with sand all the time so I don't see it; it's what the salties use so I don't think there'll be any problems. Anaerobic bacteria need a deep sand bed, usually six inches or more. I also stir it with every other water change (about every two weeks) to keep the bad stuff out.

I was going to use pebbles for the substrate not the sand / argonite, Should I reconsider this for buffering / ph.

It's all a matter of personal preference. IME, so far, the sand hasn't done much in the way of raising my pH. I really like the look of sand, and my cichlids love moving it around a lot. Plus if it the cichlids don't work out I'll just add some salt and viola!, salt water tank .

 

[TankGirl]

I have eggcrate and cichlid sand (Sahara sand by Caribsea) and petrified coral with river rocks but my pH did not raise appreciably until I put crushed coral in the filter, so your substrate can probably be whatever you prefer. Someday I will be getting shellies and they need sand to dig around in, but otherwise there are cichlid gravels that work great. The thing is to put your rocks down on top of the eggcrate (that keeps the points of rock from cracking the bottom glass) and THEN adding the gravel or sand, so that when the cichlids dig around they will not disturb the rocks and cause them to fall. I would keep your gravel/sand bed relatively shallow, just to cover the eggcrate and you should not have a problem. What fish do you plan on getting?

 

[Scottw68TN]

Africans for sure. Small varieties. Maybe 3 yellow labs, 3 peacocks or electric blue haps. I would like them all to be under 8 inches. 6 inches would be perfect.

 

[shawmutt]

You might want to read up on mixing mbuna and haps...some say they don't get along because of different requirements (mbuna are rock dwellers and haps are more open water fish). I read your post to the salties about how to place the rocks--here's what I did:

1. Cut the eggcrate to size and laid it in the tank

2. Stacked all my rocks the way I wanted them

3. Then stuffed the sand in all the crevasses and added water

Just so you know, it looks nothing like this now. I'm going to get a more recent pic as soon as the rocks have a nice layer of algae on them.

 

[Scottw68TN]

Thanks shawmutt. I get it now. I thought eggcrate was the foam eggcrate padding. Thats what was confusing me so much it just didn't seem right to put the spongy material under the substrate. I SEE THE LIGHT!