Post by Suzanah on Apr 23, 2015 4:16:38 GMT -5
Coconut Houses
So you're thinking about a coconut house for your tank. They can be awesome, however there are a few things you need to do so it works properly.
Here's a finished coconut house with some of the tools you'll need.
Here's a finished coconut house with some of the tools you'll need.
What you need:
- A coconut
- A saw or something to cut the coconut in half
- A spoon to scoop the meat out
- sand paper
- something to cut a door. I like to use a drill with a hole bit attachment (This takes muscle so if you have wimpy arms like I do then a strong person as well. lol)
- A pot to boil the coconut house for several hours
Step By Step:
Get your coconut. It doesn't matter if you buy a whole coconut (cheaper) or get one that's already cut and hollowed out from a pet store.
1. When you have your coconut cut it in half with a small saw and take ALL the white meaty part out. You really don't want this stuff in the tank. It's also a good idea to smooth the outside with some sand paper and take a lot of the fuzzies off. If you get it from the pet store you can skip a lot of this stuff and go strait to boiling or cut better doors in it if you want.
2. Since it's no fun having a house without doors it's a great idea to either cut out doors with the appropriate sharp tools or drill one out with a hole bit attachment. This is my preferred method because it makes nice even doors but it takes arm strength so asking or bribing one of your strong friends to help goes a long way if you have noodle arms like mine. I also like to cut out about three doors around my house. The fish still think they're totally hidden but I can easily see them. Oh and I like to sand around the door cut outs so that there aren't any sharp edges that fish with long fins may snag on.
3. I like to air on the side of caution so after this is done you want to boil the living crap out of it for like 8 hours or more and change the water when it gets too dark from tannins. You can add some aquarium salt in if you want (but not needed). This will remove the toxins on the shell (the important part) as well as help boil out a lot of the tannins. Even if you get a coconut shell that's already hollowed out etc. from a pet store you will still want to boil it as most of those are for lizards and other land dwelling critters so it's probably not boiled because they don't need it.
4. Add the coconut shell to the tank. It takes a little work but is pretty easy all in all. At this point you can also tie plants onto it (like the picture below with an anubias nana)
Like driftwood, coconut shells will add tannins to your water. This is fine in your tank. Carbon will remove the tannins though.
The picture with this post are the tools I used to smooth out and cut doors in the coconut house as well as the complete house in my tank. I didn't need to cut it in half as I received it that way but wanted better doors because the one little one it had sucked.
