Coconut caves

[Jonesy]

Just wondering if anyone has made any......pros/cons etc.....

I'd like to replace a few of the rock and broken pot caves in my pleco tank and i love the way these look....

Thanks

[madattiver]

i really like them.. I have them in several of my tanks and have had many bristlenose spawns in these kind of caves. and at an added bonus, they only take a few minutes to build

[Jonesy]

seems that i've read conflicting reports of boiling them much like you would driftwood.....what kind of experiences have you had?


Thanks

[madattiver]

mine have been in my tanks for almost two years.. i can't remember if i boiled them or not.. but it sounds like a good idea to do as that was probably what i did with mine when i first made them

[Jonesy]

I've got the wife picking up two this afternoon. I think that i'll boil them regardless....Stained water won't do much to help the breeding of the L66's....

[Melody]

They can drop your pH / up acidity, but the creatures do indeed seem to like them. The boiling is to leech the tannins out. They look natural somehow, even though there's not a whole lot of coconuts underwater....lol.

There's an illustrated how-to here:

http://www.aquariumlife.net/projects/diy-decoration/87.asp

[Jonesy]

bit of an update....split them, drained them. cleaned them and boiled them. Then I boiled them, boiled again, and again, and again, and again, and yes again. So far, i've boiled them for over three hours, changing the water every 20 mins, and they are still bleeding tannins!!! Going to keep going though.....

I thought this was gonna be simple :no:

[Melody]

Nothing worth doing is simple, nothing worth having is easy to get, and nobody worth marrying is easy at all :biggrin: .

Today's dime store psych was brought to you by...

The letter F and the # 1.

[Jonesy]

All done...

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o155/jones345/100_0579.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o155/jones345/100_0580.jpg

[Jonesy]

Seems that everyone has now had a chance to check it out. The L066 Scribble has claimed it....Already had to defend it against a curious 3.5" fan shrimp
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o155/jones345/100_0592.jpg

[blainep]

VERY nice, did you find this a fairly easy project ?
I've been thinking of making a few for myself, but no time for it yet.

:thumbup: :Applaud: :thumbup:

Looks like you're gonna need a few more !

[Jonesy]

Ya pretty simple.....Other then the boiling out of the tannins....Must have boiled for three and a half hours, changing the water every 20 minutes.....I would advise finding the biggest coconuts you can find though.....will make this DIY project much easier..

[Melody]

Looks great! Now you can make a zillion more for the rest of us! :Frog:

[Tanya in Moncton NB]

There's all different ways of doing coconut huts. I made a different one with coconut from the store. I drilled a whole buch of holes all through it with a hole drill. then I pryed the coconut off, boiled the shell for a few hours and attached java moss and java fern to it. It's all grown now, and it's a ball with holes in it and plants growing over top! :laugh: