Sandstone in a Cichlid aquarium?

[Eraserhead]

Hey guys,

My family has some property out in the middle of nowhere that intersects a state forest and a national forest. There is a creek that runs through the area, and I found a lot of nicely shaped rocks that I would like to put in my cichlid aquarium. Most of the rock seems to be sandstone, with a little shale in there too. I know that limestone can change the ph of water, but I didn't find any out there (which is actually very surprising, about 20 miles west of this area is Bloomington, Indiana, the town that I went to college in and one of the biggest limestone deposits in the country- The Lincoln Memorial and a bunch of other famous stuff was built with Bloomington limestone. Ok, enough of that ). Does anybody know if sandstone could have any ill effects in the aquarium? I've heard that since it is very soft, and can break apart, I may get some pieces falling off, or some residue that may go into my filter. This is fine with me, I have an awesome canister filter that traps about anything.

Also, since I got this stuff from a creekbed, is there any special decontamination procedure I should follow before introducing it to my tank? I have scrubbed down many of the rocks already (I haven't had the guts to put any in the tank yet), but there seems to be some organic looking coloration to many of them still.

Any help would be appreciated!!

[IloveCichlids]

The sandstone will be fine in your tank. I have had sandstone in my 120 for a couple of years now and have not had a problem with it breaking and or deteriorating. In an African Cichlid tank you can put limestone in it because you want it to buffer the water for a higher pH. The only thing that I would do for the creek bed stuff is scrub it and let it dry in the sun. You should then be able to put it in your tank.

[Eraserhead]

Awesome, sounds good to me! Now if only we would get some sun here... Thanks so much for your help!!

[Eraserhead]

What I ended up doing is scrubbing the stones down really well, then baking them in the oven at 300 degrees for about a half hour or so. That seemed to have dried them out pretty well. I took a couple pictures that I linked. You can see the Red Devil in a couple of them. The scale of the pics is kind of weird... I hope that my pleco doesn't totally trash my setup, a good smack from his tail could probably take the structure down! Here are some pics:

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n.../reddevil1.jpg

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...d187/tank1.jpg

In this one, look at this little Red tail shark. I had him in one of my other tanks, and he killed two of my other sharks and one of my swordtails. No idea why he is so aggressive... I was really ticked, and I KNOW this isn't quite ethical, but I figured I would just put him in the Cichlid tank to teach him what it feels like to be smacked around. Anyway, what's the difference between feeding them a feeder platty and any other fish? The funny thing is, the Cichlids have totally left the shark alone. They have no interest in him whatsoever. So he just floats around wherever he wants unmolested (for now). Here is the pic:

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...d187/tank2.jpg

[IloveCichlids]

That looks neat but very unstable. I would try (IMO) to come up with some other arrangement that will be more sturdy. You could be faced with large problems if that thing falls. You could try and get some more sandstone from your local landscape yard. A couple pieces at around $.20 lb would greatly reduce the chance of you buying a new tank, flooring, and fish down the road.

Just a suggestion.

[oliesminis]

i have got to agree that it needs to be made more stable. i would take a lot of the higher stuff of and mabe build another pile or expand that one out

[Mazzy]

I third the motion that it looks too shaky. You may want to consider redoing your rock work. Cichlids dig and one good mouthful of substrate in the right location will bring that whole structure down.
I'm sure you are looking to get the most caves out of your design but if you make a few less caves, and put the rocks a little closer together and piled a little tighter, you'll have multiple sized caves as well as more stability, and even some more closed in cave areas which will make the fish more comfortable than the large open spaced caves do. You can look on the net for some ideas but basically just think "o'naturale" with the rock piles. The fish will figure out where they want to make their individual territories (caves) and will clean them out so to speak, to make the room they need.