Are these aquarium safe?

[Fishalicious]

I'm looking for some cool caves for my future to own clown loaches and RTBS. Can't find anything. Well at least nothing cheesy. So I figure if I'm going to HAVE to go cheesy, I might as well use clay plant pots and drill some holes in them. They seem to be a bit more roomy.

Q1: Are these known to be 'Aquarium Safe' ? I would definitely plan on rinsing them thoroughly and soaking them for at least 72 hours. Has anyone heard of any horror stories about people using them in their tanks?

Q2: Is there ANY kind of 'Aquarium Safe' paint that I can use to at LEAST give these plant pots some originality? I've done some research and only came about marine epoxy and model hobby epoxy paint. Anybody have any experience with these or have any other suggestions?

Tanks
~Dan

 

[frshwaterfinatc]

No, haven't ever tried putting a clay pot in an aquarium- I imagine an uncoated pot may tend to absorb quite a lot of water and in the process expel it's components into the water before the bubbles surface.
Recently I made a terrible mistake by putting a few rocks I had from a collection into my crab tank. I rinsed the rock, but when I put it into the water and looked the next day, the water was cloudy and reeked of minerals or earth and the crab was dead. He reeked just as badly as the water. 8O
Perhaps some sort of aquarium safe sealant would work- and I believe there must be a safe paint or enamel, since many aquarium rocks are coated with it. Good luck! I'll surf around and get back to you if I find any info!

 

[QuietDusk]

I don't know about the clay pots being safe or not, but if you want a natural looking cave you could use some pvc pipe covered in gravel. There is a really cool looking one in the DIY forum. Here's the link:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=20028&highlight=

HTH

 

[chasgood]

cichlid owners use clay pots for breeding.
Some use pvc pipe for caves.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_list.php bottom of page

 

[Fishalicious]

Excellent ideas guys! I especially love the idea of the pvc piping with the aquarium silicon. I think I'm going to try that out possibly sometime within the next week or two.
Thanks a lot 8)
~Dan

 

[grimlock3000]

If you get white PVC, dye it first, it will look much better once you stick the rocks on it:

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=27817&highlight=custom