Moving rocks and cleaning substrate

[gturmindright]

While moving rocks and cleaning substrate do you attempt to put them back in the exact same spot? If you put them in different spots does all hell break lose? Is an attempt to put them back in the same spot good enough or do they need to be in the EXACT same spot?

[frantic]

I don't think you would need to keep them in exact same spots. But I wouldn't move rock piles if they are set up for boundaries or claimed territories, then you will have an issue. I also would keep any areas that are hide outs for stressed fish. I personally don't move rocks to clean very often. I'd make sure your water flow is set to where most of your debris gets pushed into intake or an easily accessible spot of tank.

[thefishdaddy]

Robert, it's not a good I deal to remove the rocks just to clean the gravel what I used to do was just spray the new water from the hose around the back of the rocks hopefully blowing the debris, it would really cloud the tank but much easier than getting the rock work back to where you had them, I had a tank cracked 2 days after the 1994 Northridge quake it's not a good feeling stepping into a wet carpet after that I made sure my tanks where acrylic, I would suggest putting Styrofoam on the bottom of the tank then the rock work last would be the gravel or sand cos fish have the tendency to dig and eventually topple the rock formation, if you don't want the foam then do the rock work on the bare bottom of the glass before adding the sand.

Chuck

[...]

I agree with both of the comments above. I use light diffuser underneath my rock piles to spread the load and minimize probs if a pile werw to collapse. After having tropheus destroy a foam background grazing algae on it I was worried they would ingest the foam and upset their delicate bellies.

[frantic]

I've also used lighting eggcrate under substrate to keep rocks off the bottom.

[thefishdaddy]

So who sells eggcrates now that our local Home Depot and Lowes don't sell them anymore, luckily I got one left that I've been saving.

[...]

perhaps a lighting store? I wasn't aware HD didn't carny it anymore. I bought some <6 mths ago I think...

[frantic]

My local stores carry them. Might be able to buy 2pk on amazon

[brianyelick]

I've found it on Amazon.
I also discovered HD does not carry it.

[mikevxr]

I must admit my tanks are fairly sparsely decorated with only a couple of rocks and some PVC pipes cut to six inch sections - so cleaning is fairly easy but then again all my tanks are in my fish room rather than the house. I'm inclined to use a gravel cleaner to stir up and suck out any dirt from my sand/gravel substrate.