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Hey guys, today I bought 2 little nice pieces of driftwood and some pvc pipes. I was planning to make little caves of them, but a friend told me that they are lightly venomous? do you think it's not venomous anymore when I boile them? Geez I'm happy he said that, imagine that my zebs will be killed by pvc pipes

you sure?? my friend has been using them for years.......

Your friend is right, sort of.

http://www.acereport.org/pvc2.html There's plenty of research reports and other pages claiming the same is this one. But that doesn't mean it will be poisinous to use as caves, or - I don't think they will kill the fish... but then again, why not use slate caves? They're readily available an looks good

Hi mate, boiling wouldn't make a difference. the plastic itself maybe toxic, but the zebras would have to eat a large chunk of it for it to have any ill effects. the PVC pipe is non biodegradable, so won't break down in the aquarium releasing any toxic chemicals either. provided there are no rough edges for the zebras to start eating away at i can't see that there would be any problem.

just being picky now, but venomous is a term given to an organism that has a poisonous bite. i'm assuming you mean toxic/poisonous

maybe you could make a tunnel/cave out of peices of slate and silicone sealant?

Chris

ours have always been ok.

I'll have to post a piccy of my latest tube creation - I'm quite proud of it

smithrc wrote:ours have always been ok.

I'll have to post a piccy of my latest tube creation - I'm quite proud of it

show us what you got smithrc...

i also have something of my own

PVC is considered safe water pipes for human consumption - much better than lead or copper pipes. I have all sorts of PVC in my Pleco tank, but since these little guys do not need very big caves, I thing I am going to use tile or slate this time

Mc Eve: do you mean by slate caves the caves that you can see a lot on the pictures here?

I'm sorry ChrisD this site is very good for my English is it

I was plannning to use special aquarium glue and put it on the pipes, and then I was planning to roll them into sand/small gravel.

I've made several 'caves' out of PVC piping for my pl*co's

I've also used a large qty of it to create the plumbing for my new 'river-tank'.

The tubes I use as 'caves', I've coated in aquarium silicone and rolled in 'small' gravel, and then I've capped the end with a small piece of slate.

I remember seeing a post on TFF where a guy had softened the PVC pipes with a heat gun, and then deformed them, to stop them looking like pipes !!!

Yes Lied, like these ones: http://www.zebrapleco.com/forum/viewtop ... ight=caves

Looks much more natural in my opinion. Actually, I wasn't aware of the controversy surrounding PVC until you asked. I looked around a bit, and it seems PVC don't have a large fan base! When that's said, I'm in the process of rebuilding my bathroom from scratch, and PVC tubes are used

Mc Eve, are those caves made out of pvc?? I don't know what you mean, I like those caves but I don't know which material it is and how to make it.

No Lied. Those caves are made of slate - tile - stone. Several people sell them here on the board, just search for caves and you'll find them.