Slate tiles from Lowes

[Ron Sower]

I recently rehomed all my Afs.  They were a great bunch!  I miss them a little from time to time.

[Frank The Plumber]

I looked at some slate at both Mensnard's and The Hey Homies depot. The stuff they had sure looked sort of scary to me. I may swing by The So Slowes to check out their stuff too. It had a bunch of rust and crystals and a lot of copper colored weird junk in it. I took a pass on it. It gave me the fears.  I wanted to build some spawning platforms for my pairs. I'm looking at what to use for the bond agent. I bought a couple of tubes of Loctite's glass repair glue which is cyanoacrylate, same as all of the marine glues on the specialty sites, toxic prior to bonding, then it hardens and is supposed to be non toxic. I figure Hey, this stuff is for gluing your stem ware back together and the Germans make it. They are sort of nutso in Europe over toxic stuff so it is prolly a good bet it is safe, No?. It is basically crazy glue or even more basically it is the acrylic clear coat used on our car paint jobs. I decided to use a couple of slate patterned porcelain tiles for this instead of the true slate. Next day or so I'll set up my wet saw and make a couple of them, some caves and other odd stuff.

Have a hot glue gun too but I don't think it will make a durable bond to porcelain.

[ilroost]

Thats what i was afraid of to. The slate i saw at menards looked like it had other things in it.Thats why i was asking Dennis to let me know how it worked out for him

[BallAquatics]

.....Thats why i was asking Dennis to let me know how it worked out for him

Well, so far so good.  I've got it in 3 different tanks with fish.  One of the things that attracted me to it was that it is a low grade of slate.  By that I mean a low construction grade.  It's not very uniform in thickness, and some of the edges are not the best.  Since it is a low grade, it hasn't been polished or chemically treated to make it more visually appealing.

If you have doubts, you should probably not use this material though.  I have a reputation for not following the established rules of keeping fish... over-stocked tanks, massive water changes, using rain water, etc.      

Dennis

[ilroost]

I hear you, i don't exactly follow all the rules either lol.
glad to see it's working out cause i want to get some to

[Frank The Plumber]

Did yours have like chunks of rust on it too? The stuff I saw was really rough looking.

[BallAquatics]

No chunks of rust.  It is multi-colored as you can see in the photos.  As shale is typically made up of sediments composed of clay or volcanic ash, I am just assuming the yellow and orange colors are more clay than ash.

Dennis

[Frank The Plumber]

I'll have to do some fish testing. I like this slate a lot but I'm just worried about the stuff by me. Your cave looks great and I really do want to make a couple.

[BallAquatics]

Your cave looks great and I really do want to make a couple.

When I took that photo, there weren't any fish in the tank.  There are now 6 Tiger Limia and 6 juvie L201's in with the slate.  Two of the 201's took over the bottom level of the cave and two are on the back-side of long slate angled against the tank sides.  The other two are just out and about.

I'll keep you posted if I run into any issues.

Dennis

[JR]

I have used this slate for a while. Have not had any problems as of yet.

[ilroost]

Ok going to buy some this weekend. I think it will be just fine. I was thinking like Frank, kinda worried about the different colors and if it was safe

[Mugwump]

Ok going to buy some this weekend. I think it will be just fine. I was thinking like Frank, kinda worried about the different colors and if it was safe

You can always polyurethane them .....I've dipped things in it, and let dry well...easier to clean too...never had any issues..