PlanetCatfish.com

Hello all,
After careful consideration of comments and evaluation of my first slate cave I have finished slate cave model 2. This one is 3"h x 7"w x 5"d. The sheltered area is considerably greater than my first one, and this one also has swim throughs on two levels. This time I did some chipping and shaping of the pieces to get them to fit together like I wanted. These are really fun to make. The only problem is that my girlfriend is going to smack me if I keep taking rocks from around the house.

wow, nice, I would def buy those if I saw them at the store!! Are you using regular aquarium sealant to hold them together?

100% silicone sealant (clear).

You're not the first person to mention buying something like this. Just curious, what do you think I could get for something like this? If I could get enough for it, I could use the proceeds from selling a bunch of these things to get another tank!

$30 maybe? $35 ...I have seen not as nice at local stores for around that.

Nice one Fred

Biggest problem would be shipping them - they look fairly fragile, so will need careful packing. And I guess it takes some time to make them, so you are not going to get much money per hour of work. But I'm sure they can be sold.

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Mats

Including scrubbing the rocks down with a wire brush this one took me 90 minutes, maybe two hours tops. I bet if I had several underway at once I could get that time down even lower.

Shipping them would indeed be critical. I was trying to figure out a way to reinforce them but so far haven't come up with anything practical that I'm satisfied with. Maybe it just gets packaged well and don't let your six year old play with it. The fish surely aren't going to wreck it.

Sure, but UPS, {Royal/US} mail, DHL, Fedex and other such companies have been know to be "not so very careful" with things. And whilst they may reimburse a broken item when it's been shipped if you ticked the right boxes and paid for the insurance, it's a load of extra work to claim it back, and you need to do the work again!

I'm not trying to stop you from doing anything, I'm just trying to make sure that IF you do decide sell these, you get happy customers.

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Mats

You could always sell it direct to your LFS. Less money of course, but less troubles also.

Geoff

krazyGeoff wrote:You could always sell it direct to your LFS. Less money of course, but less troubles also.

Geoff

Indeed.

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Mats

After my recent experience with my LFS regarding my sick corys I believe I would prefer to sell them directly to fellow aquarists.

BTW I have been continuing to build on the formation pictured above. If I may say so myself, it totally kicks butt. Total time in this one has now surpassed three hours. Time flies when you're having fun! Photos coming soon to this post...

Ooo I love it! I would buy it for $35 easy. Some shipping options are based on if it fits in their special sized box, not weight. Also, I double box items I sell on ebay and it's worked every time. Reusable biodegradable peanuts are stuffed between the boxes.

A good way to stabilize them would be to find a happy spot after they're glued together and drill straight through slowly. The post could be metal, no zinc or copper. The drill hole could then be patched with the black aquarium sealant. Forget scrubbing the rocks down with a wire brush, gather a ton a rocks and rent a pressure washer. (Do NOT use it on your car )

The only problem is that my girlfriend is going to smack me if I keep taking rocks from around the house.

Offer up a bribe, "Honey, how about we change these 'old' rocks for some nice quartz, granite...etc" Works well for me making The Big Guy stop for rocks and burls all the time, I offer food bribes
Can't wait to see more!

thatd be a steal for 35.

I tried the pressure washer thing. Didn't go well. My pieces are too small for my 2000psi washer. I don't dare hold them by hand either. Is there an effective safe way to pressure wash small pieces of slate?

I also thought about your drilling idea too. Thanks for the info about what kind of metal to use. Stainless steel is what I would use if I try this. I'm curious to see how slate drills. Fortunately I have lots of drill bits (masonry, high and low speed) and a nice drill press. My biggest fear is cracking the slate by applying too much pressure.

The problem with your bribe suggestion to quell the little lady is that the rocks are new this season. We kind of already blew our landscaping budget too. Oh well, she can't hit that hard anyway

Drilling slate can be quite hard. I'd try to find a diamond tipped drill-bit that grinds a hole, rather than the normal masonry bits that "hammer" a hole.

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Mats

Hi Fred,

The problem with your bribe suggestion to quell the little lady is that the rocks are new this season. We kind of already blew our landscaping budget too.

Oh dear, I understand her well then, it takes time to place garden stone just right.

Oh well, she can't hit that hard anyway

She could still throw a rock at you so duck and see if you can hunt down the supplier - may be cheaper that way too Happy wife, happy life. Or girlfriend, same deal.

For pressure washing, I've tried putting the stones on the ground on a piece of plywood or such. It rips holes in your grass.

As for MatsP suggestion about hole cutting, makes good sense. These drill tips work by grinding a hole rather than powering through it. You can make a drilling well by putting a ring of hot glue around the hole and keeping it filled with coolant, water, oil etc. Obviously you'd have to try something like veggie oil rather than that toxic DIY shop stuff. The hot glue ring can just be popped off when you're done.

Better yet, take a piece to your local Lapidary Club and see if you can pay a small fee to use their equipment/advice.

Always wanting to know more about DIY/power-tools and such, I had to search to see if I could find something suitable for this purpose:
This website was the first that came up:
http://www.ukam.com/drilling_product_guide.htm

They aren't particularly cheap bits, but should last quite some time if used correctly. You can probably find medium-large diameter diamond hole-saws at your local DIY shop (in the UK B&Q sells them, and I'm sure Home Depot or similar in the US would too). The problem comes if you need to have quite a small diameter, you probably need to at least find a "proper hardware store" and it's likely that you will end up having to special order the particular bit.

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Mats

The pressure washing was tried on my concrete driveway. The stones went flying. Changing the angle (90 degrees to 60 ish degrees) just changed how far away the pieces got blown away. But on the bright side I have a nice clean driveway now.

The drilling thing sounds like it is going to be a headache.
I may just see how well the silicone holds up and pursue drilling if it becomes necessary.

Photos of v2.1 coming within 30 minutes.