Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi to all. i currently have a 10 gal. tank that is newly overstocked due to my black balloon molly having babies (yay!). so for valentines day my loving hubbie made me a bigger tank (approx. 58 gal.). i don't have a lot of cash to spend on tank decorations, and we're currently using fake plants (which surprisingly, the fishies actually like). does anyone have any recommendations for cheap and easy DIY decorations? can i put rocks and wood from the great outdoors in it? (i know there's probably a disinfecting thing-a-ma-jing that needs to be done, but what exactly is it?) any help would be greatly appreciated, so that i can get my crowded fishies into their new, spacious home. thanks in advance! (oh yeah....my tank's a freshwater tank....with platys, balloon mollies, neon tetra's, and serpae tetras.)

Rocks, and sticks from the great outdoors can be a wonderful addition. Some caution, of course must be used.

ROCKS: Some rocks contain lime, the same material that makes rings around your bathtub. Lime will increase the hardness of water, and may raise pH. Testing for lime is fairly simple, as it will dissolve in most acids, producing CO2, and various calcium salts.

TESTING FOR LIME: To test for lime, you must first soak the rock in water, so that air bubbles stop coming out of it. You may then either soak it in a weak acid, such as vinegar, or drop some strong acid (Which may be hard for the non-chemist to obtain) onto the rock. If the rock produces bubbles, it contains lime.

Some rocks may also contain dissolved salts, which may raise the salinity of a tank, but these generally wash out quickly, and will be removed by most disinfecting processes, or if not, will leach out, and be gone after only a few water changes.

WOOD: Most wood contains tannins, which can discolor the water to some degree. The worst discoloration would turn it into a dark "Tea" color. Tannins are good for planted aquariums, and will tend to lower the pH a little.

TANNINS: I know of no way of testing for tannins, however, the tannins can be leached out of wood by soaking it in several changes of water. This will be necessary in any event, since wood will float until it has been soaked a long time to waterlog it. Tannins will be leached out more quickly if the water the wood is soaking in happens to be boiling. As an added benifit, boiling wood in water for more than 10 minutes will usually kill off any harmful bacteria.

DISENFECTING: The best way to disinfect anything is to leave it in boiling water for 10 minutes to half an hour. At high temperatures, a thermometer may be necessary to be sure that the boiling point is above 140 F.

Boiling an object in water will kill virtually all diseases, and has the added benifit of helping to leach out unwanted chemicals, and remove carbonate hardness (Which affects water quality) from the decoration.

Sometimes, an object is too big to fit in a pot on the stove, and in this case, chemical means may be desirable instead. Soaking the object in water containing 5% bleach (One part bleach per 20 parts water) will kill most anything. Unlike heat, bleached items must be soaked for quite some time (like a week or so) to ensure that the chemical soaks into the whole thing. Since bleach can evaporate, it is also good to cover the container you are using to soak the thing.

Once your bleach has gotten through all of the decoration, you have the second problem of getting rid of the bleach. I reccomend using chlorine bleach in the first place, because most anyone with an aquarium has a chemical to get rid of the chlorine in tap water. So, dump the bleach bath out, and fill the container with plain water. Now, mix in about ten times the reccomended ammount of water treatment chemicals, and let that soak for about a week (Uncovered, since bleach evaporates) and when you are done, your decoration should be clean.

You might also look into ceramics. New ceramics of any kind are already germ free, thanks to the enormous temperatures needed. Terra cotta art is sometimes a good idea for larger aquariums, and if you live near a school that teaches pottery, I'm sure they have some leftover projects that are unusual shapes...

Glass may also be an interesting idea. In my Navy days, I once decorated a tank with broken tequilla bottles. I used a punch awl to break holes in specific places, and then used a file to go over the sharp edges. You could do the same with ceramics, of course.

Lastly, I might mention that 58 gallons is pretty large, and you may be able to put verious types of "Pond" plants in it. Plants sold for use in ponds are generally cheaper than aquarium plants, although the conditions they are kept in tends to foster algae, and snails. Setting them up in the aquarium before adding fish would allow you to chemically kill of pesky things like that ahead of time though.

hey, thanks! those are some really great ideas, and i just know i'm gonna have a lot of fun decorating this tank. thanks for your help! i really appreciate it!

No prob. Oh, but do be careful with broken glass and ceramics, lest you cut yourself, or your fish! My first attemt at the bottles left me with a badly scarred betta.