New Feather Rock Addition

[theclarks1]

This is my first attempt at being creative with this type of thing in the tank. The fish seem to love it though.

[theclarks1]

This is the other one that I took.

[ticman]

Looks great

care to share what you did?

Thanks

[Glaive]

Yes it is a good looking, if not curious rock, looks like black lava rock to me.

[theclarks1]

Hey guys and thanks for the replies. Basicly what I did was I used a 4" hole saw in several diffrent places in the bottom of the rock, where I was going to put the cave. Then I took a makita handheld grinder with about a 5 " wheel on it that is used for sanding metal. Its close to 1/4" thick, and cut out where I had used the holesaw. It worked really well to also smooth out the inside. After that I drilled out the entrances to the cave with a 1" hole saw, and from there I took the grinder again and bored the holes out to look like the mouth of a cave. I also took the grinder and made a few cliff type places so that the other fish could use it to hide. Then I took the grinder and ran it over the whole rock and smoothed out the rough edges, then I took some sandpaper, I went from coarse to fine grit to make it even smoother. It would also be a good idea to blow off the rock with an air compressor if you have one. Make sure that you are wearing protective gear when you are doing this. Gloves, saftey goggles, something to keep the dust out( I used a respirator that I use when doing auto painting.) believe me it makes a serious mess. After all that I took the rock put it in a pan of boiling water for about 15-30 minutes, a rolling boil is what i used. Then put it directly in cold water. I took that from an earlier post. But It did make it heavier and sat right on the bottom of the tank. Thats about it. If you guys have any other questions feel free to contact me.
Thanks again for the replies and intrest.
Patrick

[barristan]

where did you get the rock? I have been trying to find some myself.

[theclarks1]

sorry for not responding, I got it from a guy here on the forums but I dont remember who it was. He got it and shipped it to me. I would also like to have another piece of it too all of the fish seem to be in that rock when the light comes back on.

[sosnarfy]

You should be able to get these feather rocks from your local Menards. It is basically just pumice. Make sure you smooth the edges well or your fish's fins will definitely get shredded. I actually used another smooth river rock to do my 'sanding' as I found the pumice shredding the sandpaper rather quickly. A large masonry drill bit works well too. I've also found that if the rock is wet when you're working on it (using battery powered tools of course), it cuts like butter.

[theclarks1]

I dont have any local stores like that here. Im in WV. But I used after I got the hole cut a hand grinder with about a 5 in grinding disk thats made for metal and it took care of it right away. I used the grinder to also go over it before I sanded but I used the rougher sandpaper first. But it still shreded it good. ah well whatever works tho. Ill try the smooth rock next time and see how it works for me. Seems like a good idea.