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Slight diversion from the topic, but good news to hear the plecos are improving in health. They will need those caves though, once in the permanent tank.

Went on a major 5-hour-long cave-making binge today, before the school semester resumes. I never received any of the "good" clay from the artist, but since my original "bad" clay fired without problem in his kiln and is currently performing well in my aquaria, I decided to go ahead and use it again. I also bought more of that "bad" clay in a gray color to increase the color diversity (not just terra cotta and white).

Here's what I made, some traditional, some shaped like oval rocks, some tall and one made as a tank backdrop: On some of the caves, I integrated overhanging ledges, to replicate the same effect other people create by placing normal caves underneath wood or sheets of slate rock. I made the entrances a mix of sizes to accommodate everything from my smaller clown plecos and spotted orange seam plecos to my larger albino BNs and mustard spot plecos.

Now to get them fired and add them to the tanks!

Cheers, Eric

Like the idea of the tall one at the back in the first picture, i had an idea a few weeks ago, i dont know how, or if the concept could work, those backgrounds that are designed to be siliconed inside the tank, obviously it would need to be thicker than normal in the size, to accommodate the length of the caves, do you think pleco caves could be constructed into the wall itself, some do spawn in rocks or holes in river banks, obviously the weight would need to be considered, but individual caves could be constructed of the individual plecos preference and size, then fitted into the wall, sealed so nothing gets behind it. So probably need to be custom made. The tank layout, I'm basing my example here on Panoquolus as its what I'm keeping currently, so I'd design it with wooden caves and twisted roots and branches coming out from the wall near to the cave entrances. Although its a real lot of effort to go to, if your plecos aren't too fussy and will happily breed in a readily available or home made cave. But for those that are more suitable for this kind of arrangement. It could look more natural with the right background, say for those breeding in holes in rocks, also possibly freeing up some footptint space, As long as caves are easily seen into and easily accessible, obviously for the keeper also.

The one laying on its side is like that. It's designed to sit up against the back wall, with 3 caves: One long one on bottom (temporarily held open in photo by a wooden dowel while it dries) and two on top. But it didn't turn out pretty or natural looking, so I'll try again. Visibility will be less than optimal.

Although designed to sit against the back wall it could be placed to improve visibility with whatever the plecos natural environment is wood, rocks, etc behind it.

pleconut wrote:Like the idea of the tall one at the back in the first picture, i had an idea a few weeks ago, i dont know how, or if the concept could work, those backgrounds that are designed to be siliconed inside the tank, obviously it would need to be thicker than normal in the size, to accommodate the length of the caves, do you think pleco caves could be constructed into the wall itself, some do spawn in rocks or holes in river banks, obviously the weight would need to be considered, but individual caves could be constructed of the individual plecos preference and size, then fitted into the wall, sealed so nothing gets behind it. So probably need to be custom made. It could look more natural with the right background, say for those breeding in holes in rocks, also possibly freeing up some footptint space, As long as caves are easily seen into and easily accessible, obviously for the keeper also.

Hello Theresa,
this has been done already - here is an example:
http://akvaforum.no/text.cfm?id=2013
as well as here:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... rd#p257300
I personally prefer to work with styrofoam/tyle cement and fragments of real rocks as you can see in the following pictures - the advantage is that it is closer to their natural habitat (they do live in crevices etc. and not in clay caves ) and it simply looks better. The disadvantage is that you cannot take the cave out- but why would you?




Regards
Max
PS: in the last picture there are roughly 11 clay caves in the aquarium for my plecos (L75, L259, L333, L399, L400) - none of them are beeing used - they all hang out in the background wall...

Thanks for the pictures links etc. I thought this would have been done already. Info on different methods of doing this is informative.

Hi Max,

Thanks for adding these pictures. I've seen your pics before and I'm impressed with the result. I apologize for not mentioning them earlier in this thread as a type of cave design, although to be honest I was focusing mostly on free-standing cave designs, not attached, whole-wall designs. That said, I am trying to make some of my clay caves tall enough to cover part of the back wall and create the effect of a riverbank, but I just haven't figured out how to sculpt them into something that looks natural; so far, mine look more like lumpy bloated marshmallows or tumorous livers.

flh1200 wrote:PS: in the last picture there are roughly 11 clay caves in the aquarium for my plecos (L75, L259, L333, L399, L400) - none of them are beeing used - they all hang out in the background wall...

No surprise. If I was a pleco, I'd be there too!

Cheers, Eric

The disadvantage is that you cannot take the cave out- but why would you?

Because it is the easiest and most effective way to pull spawns before they leave the cave. At that point you basically have to dismantle a tank to get them out.

If it could be done with removable caves it could work, id place something under the caves to help prevent eggs going all over the tank, as sometimes happens, you'd need a very tight seal around where the caves fit into the wall, or you risk losing fry or getting a build up up gunk behind it, this is what i meant by using caves preferred by the individual plecos. And if you were to reuse the wall and need to change caves, say for example if you breed a different species of a different size, you'd be much better off with a brand new wall.

Hello Teresa & Eric,
Håvard Støre Andresen was really one of the pioneers in this field along with the fellas from back2nature (Joel Malmström) http://backtonature.se/about/crew/.
In the past couple of years the influence of panta rhei as well as Benjamin Hamann had quite an Impact here in europe.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH5h9T ... O_X5VMExKw
Farid (forum member) has done also some quite amazing work
http://veloofahren.ch/Aquarium/selfmade.html
and there are many more (Google is amazing when it comes to that )

For me the the fascination of aquaristic is to be able to have nature at home and watch fishes in their natural habitat - if you have a fish store or you are a commercial breeder I can understand that it is unpractical to furnish your fish tanks with backwalls (try to get a pleco out of that )

I personally have collected hundreds of underwater pictures from those habitats and enjoy collecting stones/rocks as well as branches in nature and then recreate nature at home - unfortunately I have to watch the weight of my tanks carefully as I live in a building that is more then 120 years old and I do not want to end up in the cellar ... - that is why I use artifacts out of nature in combination with styrofoam and tyle cement........................

Cheers
Max

So would, obviously, would be more practical if you were keeping plecos if the purpose wasn't for a breeding project although with a decent natural background-they might.

And a few more. This time I think I did a better job making the against-the-wall, background style cave complex. It's not finished yet; when it dries more, I'll use carving tools to texture it. But in general, I'm much happier with this one than the one I made yesterday.

The square cave with the nipped corner reminds me of a sopaipilla. Now all I need is some oil for deep-frying and a squirt bottle filled with honey. Yum!

Hi Max, Thanks for the additional info. Wow, your housing building leaves something to be desired, doesn't it? Why didn't the original builders make the structure stronger? (Obviously they didn't plan ahead! ) Well the fact that you have this problem is a testament to your talent at tank aquascaping!

Cheers, Eric

Hi Eric, I found this info page on another forum:
http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3194
It seems the caves you've been making are much more preferred, according to what's written. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the link, Teresa.

My favorite part of that essay is the part where the author compares the home-made caves to looking like "something you just pooped out." LOL

I did like the author's emphasis on the benefits of overhanging ledges above the caves. Several of these most recent caves I made have built-in overhangs above the entrance.

I must say that I disagree with him though on the issue of water current. Although I'm sure it doesn't matter for some species, I suspect it's really important for others. But I suppose that's just a hunch of mine.

Also, I discovered if you use Google images to search for the phrase "caves inurl:plecoplanet.com" (but without quotes around it), you will find lots of images of alternative-shape and alternative-construction caves, including some made from solid oak doors which have been drilled out. Interesting.

Cheers, Eric

P.S., I'm meeting with the artist tomorrow to drop off these most recent caves for firing. Fingers crossed they don't break in the kiln!

Good luck with the firing, keep updating!

Those overhanging ledges, I'm wondering if other ledges on the side of the cave, for example, could provide the female a place to wait for the male to let her in.

How's the progress going with the caves Eric?

Still waiting for the artist to fire them in his kiln. He charges me almost nothing to fire the caves for me, as long as I'm willing to wait for him to fill the kiln with other projects. Then he just wedges my caves in on the side and does everything at once.

While I greatly appreciate the arrangement, I admit I am getting itchy, eager to get the caves back and put them to use.

That pleco wall idea... err I didn't actually have, lol. I'm thinking of making one for my new mustard spots

I'm hoping it's a hit with at least one of my pleco species. On the positive side, it may be an effective form of high-density housing, as long as territoriality isn't a problem. But as pointed out by TTA on the previous page of this thread, the drawback to these walls is you can't pull out just one cave if you need to isolate a dad with eggs. Also, you can't rearrange them in relation to each other if placement needs to change. Time will tell, hopefully for the better.

With just one pair, I'm hoping, but time will tell. I have loads of straight roots i bought, initially for my L397 tank but with 8 of them i agree a structure like this would be totally impractical if they were breeding. For the Mustard spots there would be a removable cave for the male but it would appear to blend in. And lots of hidouts for the female lots of branches roots ect joined in but branching out from the wall. They'd have the substrate virtually free. Now I've got to build it, and get them to good health.

The last caves are back from the kiln. Miraculously, they all survived the firing process without breaking apart.

I say miraculously because the night before I was scheduled to take them to be fired, I did some retouching to their finishes, and two of them (most importantly the 3-cave textured wall unit) fractured into multiple large pieces. I wetted the dry pieces and used some fresh clay to stick the pieces back together, then oven-dried them for two hours at 175F to remove as much water as possible (since, AFAIK, wet clay can't easily go straight into a kiln). When that was over, small surface cracks had formed where the original fractures had broken, but the pieces did stay together in my home oven. I showed these to the artist the next day, and he was confident the pieces would break again during firing... but they didn't! Hooray!

Here are the pieces. I've placed the textured 3-cave wall unit in my 20 Gal for my mustard spot plecos. I put some of the smaller caves and one hollow stone in my 10 Gal for my Hemiancistrus guahiborum. In the tank photos, the water may look dirty because I had to disturb the rocks and sand to make room for all these caves.

Unlike children being served home-made macaroni and cheese instead of Kraft mac & cheese, let's hope that my plecos appreciate my effort and use these caves to make babies!

Cheers, Eric

Good luck it would be really cool to find out one day that plecos spawned in the caves you are making, you never know maybe you could then start a business. The place i get my caves from advertise their caves as "proven spawning caves" one of mine spawned in one, My ABNs so i bought more, no luck so far, also I'm wondering how my plecos will get on with the caves @Mol_PMB is making.

I've got the drill bit today! Might have a chance to get to the workshop soon - tomorrow I'm busy at the CSG auction...

Mol_PMB wrote:I've got the drill bit today! Might have a chance to get to the workshop soon - tomorrow I'm busy at the CSG auction...

Hey Paul,

If you have time, put that drill bit to work ASAP and make some caves today, then sell them at tomorrow's CSG auction if you are allowed.

I mentioned to my local aquarium society that I might bring a few of the caves I just made to our next big auction in March, and in less than three hours I had multiple people knocking at my door (figuratively), asking me to make more of my caves for them (since I'm keeping some of the caves I made for my own tanks, I don't currently have very many to sell at the next auction).

In my experience, even though there are a number of commercial internet sources for manufactured caves (e.g., plecocaves.com), these caves usually aren't readily available at a lot of LFSs - I've only seen pleco caves for sale in ONE local fish store in the last four years (that was at WetSpot Tropical Fish in Oregon, and their selection was limited in size and number). So if you can make some good caves, they might be very popular commodity at the CSG auction!

Cheers, Eric

I haven't got enough wood in stock to make more than a few, and I'm busy!
What I need to do is to get some more tree branches and dry them out. Then I can make some more next season.

Not any of the LFS, I go to regularly sell pleco caves, but I did donate some caves to the one I worked at for some catfish that came in that would otherwise hide behind the heaters. Wooden caves are difficult to get, I bought the last in stock, of the online retailer, I know of. But they are expensive, and when needed in large numbers, the cost does add up. So learning to make my own will help a lot.

The 3-cave textured wall unit is being put to good use: Both a mustard spot and one of my un-ID'd Hypans have simultaneously taken up residence. Now if my mustard spots would just get around to some hanky-panky.

Cheers, Eric