I'm having fun planning a new tank that I'll be setting up in the next month or so. This summer my husband collected a rock from a vacation we enjoyed. I'd like to put it in the tank as decoration and a memento of our trip. It's relatively smooth and a little bit bigger than a can of beer -it's probably granite, but I'm just guessing.

Are there any steps I can take to prepare the rock to make it safe for the tank? Or is adding a rock "from the wild" not a good idea?

I scubbed and boiled all the stones for half an hour, before i put them into my tank.
But I think I read in a thread that you should pour some vinegar onto the stones, and they shouldn't "Fizz".I think it has to do with the stones effecting your pH.
If they don't it's safe to put them in your tank, as long as there are no sharp edges on any of the stones, cuz the fish may hurt themselves.
But please wait for some other advice for I may be wrong about the vinegar.

Found the thread I was talking about , it was vinegar!

www.oscarfishlover.com/oscar-fish-advice...ion-about-rock#53451

When I put the stones in My big hypstomus pleco, he porttrayed a strange behavious,She would crawl backwards to the stone and kept slowly wagging and rubbing his tail against it.
Kept up with that behaviour as long as the stone was warm.
I though he liked the warmth. !

I found a nice rock.
I soaked it in a bucket of water for 3 days, then emptyed it and soaked it again for a week.

I havnt found anything wrong.

if it is a solid river rock, it will be fine putting it directly after
few days of soaking.... if it is some sort a lime or coral rocks, yes,
it needs some testing. it may alter your pH and can stress the fish.

are they the same kind of rock?
I like the easy look of a setup like that.
Post pics of your progress, step by step,please. Will you do that for us?We love to see that, it's very inspiring to see the creations of another fishlover!
seeing tanks build from scratch allways facinate me and I might just steal, uhm,borrow some of your ideas!And the other way around is cool as well!
Looking forward to seeing some pics!

Noddy wrote:


I'll be borrowing*cough*stealing*cough* some inspiration from your tank noddy i love it.

Johnology wrote:

That's allright, you can steal the idea, but not the fish!

Noddy wrote:


dammit i want a gar!

ok, i'll get an aussie aro.

thanks everyone. I will re-examine the rock to make sure it doesn't have sharp edges and follow the advice of vinegar, boiling, soaking. I suppose a good idea is to let it set in a bucket of water of PH-tested water and see if the PH reading changes after the rock sits there for awhile. If it doesn't change the PH of a small bucket of water, it won't change in a 150 gallon tank:)

I will definitely post photos and take notes of the new tank setup - it's fun to plan out that is for sure- and I wouldn't be successful if it wasn't for this forum!