Underground Tubeing

[BlackCamaroSS99]

Well I went to lowes and Homedepot to try and find some tubeing to put under the gravel in my 125 so the africans have somewhere to hang out and they only sell it in 1 inch wide 50 foot long increments....I wanted to buy the kind approved for water wells....

I know some people out their have the tubes running under their gravel...what kind did you use? Where did you get it?

The only thing I see that is close to what I want 1 1/2 inch is gerbil tunnels....I don't know if I want to use those....

[SGypsyMermaid]

are you talking about pvc pipe? to hide amongst the rocks?:confused:

[jonah]

They sell it in any length you want if it's PVC. The last couple of times I bought it in 10 foot sections, but I was using it for making sponge filters.

[BlackCamaroSS99]

Is just any PVC pipe fine(treated w/o chemicals) I was trying to stay with the approved for wells/drinking water becuase it's prob the safest for water conditions...

And Gypsy I'm actually going to put it under the gravel with elbows so that they can hide in places without it really taking up tank space...I have a bunch of moon rock structures started and I just wanted to add some tubes under/around it for them to hide out in...

[SGypsyMermaid]

i don't mean to be argumentative, but i think that you'll be wasting your time putting them under the gravel cuz your cichlids will probably just dig 'em up. and they'll take up the same amount of tank space whether they are under the gravel or not...the gravel will just be displaced to a higher level in the tank, won't it?

[SGypsyMermaid]

btw--in the diy section, there are some cool ideas for camouflaging the pvc pipe with siliconed pebbles, gravel, shells, etc.

[BlackCamaroSS99]

Originally posted by SGypsyMermaid
i don't mean to be argumentative, but i think that you'll be wasting your time putting them under the gravel cuz your cichlids will probably just dig 'em up. and they'll take up the same amount of tank space whether they are under the gravel or not...the gravel will just be displaced to a higher level in the tank, won't it?

Well it's going under the gravel and not raising it...as It stands now I have about 2 inches+ of gravel so a 1 and a half inch around tube still leave me with a little gravel above it...the africans will dig but hopefully not enough to bring the tubes up...so they are literally going under the gravel...like a cave in the bottom of the tank sort of....

So its only taking up the tank space that gravel would occupy anyway thus saving tank space :D

The worst that can happen is they either dig it up or jam it full of gravel...either way its only a few $'s to try this little experiment...

So I guess you can just use any old PVC pipe w/o affecting the water?

[fOx]

Aside from jamming it full of gravel, I would worry about losing fish in those pipes. They like to hide. And you may not see them (especially if teritoriality flares up) this could be a problem if one gets sick and retreats to those "tunnels" then you have no idea if they are sick, or where they are. The disease could spread, or worse yet, if one dies down there it will just become an ammonia producing machine....

I would stick to just 2 or 3 inch sections of pipe.

Just my 0.02 cents.

fOx

[jonah]

All of this actually reminds me of a breeding tank I had for electric yellows. It was a bare tank with sections of pvc lying loose in piles. The pieces were strung together with fishing line so I could pull them all out at the same tiime, there by removing their hiding places when it was time to harvest.