Pictures of Catfish wood caves wanted...

[I Prefer Dogs]

Looking for some inspiration in to how to scape a natural looking bogwood cave for a large catfish (7"-12"). Is it better to use a few larger pieces or lots of smaller pieces? Should I include any rocks or plants?

Do you have any pics to get me started?

[DutchFry]

have a look here for inspiration:

http://www.amazonmoosey.com/swampwoodbreeding.htm

I would definitely pick a nice large piece of bogwood. try to make a nice hole in there using various tools! an advantage wooden caves give over stone or clay caves, especially when breeding Panaque species, the male can adjust the inside of the cave to his needs by scraping pieces of wood away with his mouth!

good luck!

[MatsP]

What catfish are they?

Tank layout and design can be quite a complex subject, so there may be many different ideas on how to do tanks with more or less wood in the tank.


Here's my "wood-tangle" Panaque tank:


My big tank has a few bits of wood, plants and other "caves" in it:


I also posted proper caves drilled out of chunks of wood, I'll see if I can find that post somewhere.

--
Mats

[Farid]

hi guys,
i think it is a lot of work depenting on the wood to drill and carve caves in there... i just use bamboo from tha garden centre! water it for a while then rinse in hot water (shower) and place it in the tank...it might stink a bit from watering ...it may also contain some bacterial cottonlike film on it... but soon as it is in the tank the bakterias will take cars of this and it will do fine!

just make sure you cut it on the right spot...so you'll have a bottom on one end and an opening on the other...this works for fry raising tanks as for adult ancistrus as breeding caves... for ans other tank i prefer clay...easily self made.

further down there is a little picture of bamboo i use also for my fry...
http://www.veloofahren.ch/Aquarium/welsaufzucht.htm

for me bamboo is great because there is a lot of "aufwuchs" like bakterias algae etc...and for the wood eaters there's always something to bite, shrimps love it and also snails git them a clean from time to time...not so on plastic pipes (@mats )

good luck
farid