Hand made caves for tank

Mine is the one on the left, my moms is on the right and the little plant is my sons in the middle.

 

Very cool! What did you use to bind them together?

 

Thank you. Loctite aquarium safe silicone.

 

Those are super cool!

 

Thank you. It took some patience to let the silicone cure as we were building them, as we wanted them done. We are happy with the way they came out and can't wait to add them to our tank. We were thinking of putting them in, in about a couple of days or next weekend. Want to make sure that it is fully cured before doing so.

 

Love it!!

 

Great job , I love them . If I saw them at a pet store I would buy them. Alison

 

I actually planned to make something similar. This just confirms it'll look cool when its done

 

Lady monster when you do make something similar, please post a pic so I can see? Thank you. I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.

 

Wow those look amazing!!

 

Thank you Brizburk.

 

Those are beautiful! Better than anything I could buy at my LPS!

 

These look absolutely beautiful! If you ever have time, do you think you could make a little tutorial? I'm looking for decoration DIYs, as they can be a little overpriced in my local store (I swear, an ordinary 2 pound-ish ROCK is like $30 at my store.)

 

Lady monster when you do make something similar, please post a pic so I can see? Thank you. I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.

Yea mine aren't as good lol. I can't get the roof right. Its more box shape than cave shape.

 

What we did was picked up the bags of aquarium rocks from Walmart that were almost $2.00 a bag. (6 bags just in case we were gonna run out of them) we used aquarium safe silicone, we just took a rock and tried to see if the other one would at least touch each other making a good connection then kept doing hat to make a square U shape, built up the side walls as we went and let it dry in between for about an hour or so, we would do this every couple of rows so that it didn't slid off and collapse, when we got most of the side and back walls done we then filled in the U shape to make that the top of the cave. You will find that as you go that there will be some holes as the rocks don't all fit together perfectly, but hats what you want as it will start to look realistic. When we were complete with the top and the sides and it was dry enough we just flipped it over and checked to see if it was the height and it didn't bobble back and forth. I just had to add one rock to the left front Sid so it didn't wobble or rock back and fourth. Then I added a rock here and there on the top so it looked more legalistic and then took some of my old fake plants that cost $1.00 or hat I knew I wasn't gonna use anymore and cut pieces from it and silicones them to the top or wherever you want, using the little holes in the caves. You will find that as you go the silicone will stick to the table or a piece of plastic, this is ok because it will peal off once you let it cure. Not sure if this helps so you can build your own, but not sure if or when I will be building another. This was our first time ever building one and I am surprised myself on how well it came out. Thank you everyone for liking my cave I built! It was lots of fun.

 

I started with the base. Maybe starting with the roof will make it easier. I also have pvc pipe that I was going to glue rocks too in case I couldn't free hand it.

 

You could do that with the PVC. Like I said try doing it like I did and if you don't like it the silicone once it's dry will peel right off and then you can try again.