Elaine T wrote:


I think Koi-lo is reminding us that there's more than DE that is
fish-safe and can be purchased cheap at the hardware store. I like the
idea of putting cheap chunks of lava rock in Aquaclears! I've also
painted $10 shop lights with Rustoleum and used them over 55 gallon
tanks with great success.


It's economical and fun to use materials from various stores, home-made
items and items direct from nature. I've used:
- shoplights in home-made wooden canopy
- home-made wooden aquarium stand: it's cheap and exactly the right height
- slate I collected from outcrop
- granite cobbles and pieces of limestone found out and about
- sand, gravel and soil from outside, and also peat moss from garden centre
- CaCO3 "usp" powder from the drug store
- Potassium nitrate, sulphate and trace element mix from the hydroponics
store
- "garden limestone" (ground dolomitic limestone) from the garden centre
- empty buckets that had contained garden fertilizer
- old garden hose instead of Python (TM)
- razor scraper from hardware store and scrub pads from grocery store
- "pickling" salt from grocery store
- ??

Another aquarist I know also made his own wet-dry filter and collected
driftwood and aquarium plants from nature. He used metal halide lamps
from the hydroponics store, too.

We should also be able to use fish and amphibians from nature's ponds,
but I haven't tried.

Do other folks do this, and do you have favourite aquarium items NOT
from the aquarium store?

Steve