Coconut in an aquarium: how to make a house for fish with your own hands?
An aquarium is not only a permanent place of residence for fish, but also a kind of scene with "characters" for which you can come up with various plots. Natural materials serve as decorations and elements. The action can take place in the vastness of the Caribbean Sea, where ships and chests of gold were sinking. Or is it a bright underwater landscape at the bottom of a quiet bay.
Or, perhaps, these are the sunken architectural monuments of Atlantis. It all depends on the imagination of the aquarist. To help him - coconuts, from which, at will, build magnificent grottoes, bridges and ships.
Advantages
As an element of the decoration of the water "palace", coconut shell has a number of undeniable advantages:
- sinks to the bottom because it has negative buoyancy;
- looks beautiful and harmonious in combination with other items of the aquarium "interior";
- safe for fish, because it does not deteriorate in the aquatic environment and retains its properties for a long time;
- resistant to prolonged exposure to moisture.
Lint remains on the surface of the shell, which does not need to be removed. If there are crabs in the aquarium, they will happily eat them.
What is being used?
Coconut is a large fruit that contains dense, aromatic coconut pulp and tender milk inside. The liquid is drunk immediately, and you have to tinker with the white inner shell. The pulp is very tasty, but difficult to extract. Only the shell is suitable for decorating the decor in the aquarium. To create relief figures, you will need tools that are usually used when working with wooden materials.
You can build crafts from any part of the shell. If you carefully saw off the bottom and top, you get a ring. Having got rid of the top and bottom, and placing the shell with its side at the bottom, they build a beautiful grotto.
Sawing the shell into 2 or 3 parts lengthwise, the segments are turned into ships. You just need to be patient and slowly think over what materials can be used to decorate the sawn pieces of a coconut so that they acquire the finished outlines of the conceived figures.
What tools do you need?
Depending on the task (you need to make even cuts or the edges and holes should be uneven) to work with coconut shells you will need tools:
- knife;
- hammer;
- pliers;
- drill;
- hacksaw.
The natural characteristics of the fetus must be taken into account. If you inaccurately clean out the pulp or saw the shell, it will split into curved segments, which will be difficult to give the desired shape to the skeletons of dead ships or grottoes. Therefore, all actions are performed slowly, with extreme caution.
How to choose a strong ripe fruit?
When choosing a suitable material, be sure to pay attention to the signs:
- the sound of splashing liquid inside - a ripe coconut has a lot of milk inside;
- appearance - there should be no holes, dents, chips on the fruit;
- strength - when pressed on the hairy outer shell, no dents remain;
- weight - filled with milk, ripe coconut is quite weighty.
There are 3 holes at the blunt end of the coconut: 2 of them are dense, 1 is soft. It is also opened to pour out a delicious liquid. If it is covered with mold or the fruit is already empty, this product is spoiled and not suitable for crafts. Unripe coconuts will not work either.
Where to begin?
When the milk is poured, the coconut is opened with a hacksaw and the pulp is removed. For impatient aquarists, logic will prompt you to carefully cut it out with a knife. But this is a very time consuming process. You can use the following methods:
- fermentation - put pieces of coconut in a bag, wrap tightly so that no air gets in and remove for 4 days in a warm place (after this time, the pulp will easily separate from the dense shell);
- natural cleaning - this rather exotic method involves the use of red ants and consists in placing the shells in an anthill (small insects feast on the fragrant pulp).
If these methods are not suitable for some reason or there is no time, then neat grooves are made with a knife: the blunt side of the blade leads to the center and then several circles are made across. With the sharp tip of a knife, gently pry the pulp and gradually peel it off the shell.
After this stage, the shell is given the desired shape: the holes can be round or uneven, in the form of arches or through holes. To do this, use a drill or pliers. The holes with even outlines are cut first, and then pieces of the shell are chipped off until the desired shape is reached. The edges must be processed with sandpaper or a file - living creatures can easily get injured when ducking in "houses".
Shell preparation
The next step is to remove the remaining pulp and disinfect the shell. To remove the remaining white grains, use a sponge with a hard surface or a metal brush, or soak the shell in water for two days, periodically changing the water (at least 2 times a day).
It is necessary to prepare a free container and pour water into it. The peeled coconut is dipped in a liquid that is brought to a boil. Boil the shells over the fire for at least 5 minutes. This is done in order to disinfect the shell and prevent colorants from the shell from entering the aquarium water.
The colored water is drained and the steps are repeated 3-4 times. It is not difficult to clean the outside of the shell from the villi with your own hands with sandpaper, but you can do without this procedure.
Decor
On the "ship" they attach "masts", cover them with stones, Javanese moss.Nearby, you can place chests with open lids and "gold coins" shining in it. In the grotto-house - if the shell is divided lengthwise into 2 equal parts - arches are cut out on both sides (it is easier for living creatures to swim in and out of there). The bridge is constructed from a ring and a part, sawn off from it around the circumference and then divided in half. One such segment is the bridge, which is fixed with two ends at the edges of the ring, and then decorated.
You can add additional lighting, highlighting the winning parts of the decor or the composition on the back of the aquarium. The boats are very beautiful, made of 3 segments: near 3 holes from the blunt end, longitudinal lines are marked (you can use the natural fracture line) and cuts are carefully made along them.
It is not necessary to completely saw the casing - you can carefully mark the lines with a hacksaw closer to the narrow base of the coconut and then gently knock in these places with a hammer. The fruit itself will split into 3 parts.
Careful preparation of the shell is required so that foreign substances do not get into the water, and decay processes do not occur in it. In a poorly cleaned and prepared shell, the multiplication of pathogenic bacteria will lead to illness and death of the inhabitants of the aquarium. Beneficial algae have a beneficial effect on the water, which can be placed in shells, stylized as flower pots. They can be suspended or located at the bottom.
By following the rules and following useful recommendations for the processing of natural materials, aquarists turn the water space into fabulous 3D pictures from which it is impossible to take their eyes off. And fish in such kingdoms-states live very comfortably, because they remind them of their natural habitat.
How to make a coconut fish house, see the video below.
Thanks to the author. And how to process them further?
I used coconut for many years in aquariums of different sizes, first boiled it, and then stopped it and put it just like that, there have never been any problems, but you can boil the coconut for 15 minutes to calm it down.