# How stable is stable (rocks)



## Evilpenguinj (Mar 22, 2008)

Hi Everyone

I am going through the process of stacking my rocks. Everyone talks about making sure there rocks are stable as the most important thing. Well how stable is stable? If one rock is balancing across two rocks and I can move it a little if I push on it....is that considered unstable enough that a fish can move it? Any ideas you have I would appreciate.

Jason


----------



## PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn (Dec 26, 2005)

basically you want 3 points minimum touching.

if you can easily move it then it is far too unstable. however if there is only a little give in it, and requires a fair amount of force to move it its fine


----------



## Evilpenguinj (Mar 22, 2008)

Good advice. I have rocks that are ledges between other rocks. I can easily press the front of one of these and it will lift up the back. Do you think that's too unstable?


----------



## naegling23 (Jan 4, 2008)

depends on the fish.

tetras and dwarfs are not going to move around too many rocks, but if you have an oscar you might want to cement them down to each other, then chain them together and pour superglue all over it just to make sure.


----------



## Aura (Oct 29, 2005)

For me, stable also means that the rocks at the bottom of the stack will not move in any way. If you can dig substrate out from under it and it tips or moves at all, then everything above it will be compromised as well.

Not sure what kind of fish you are planning to keep, but my mbuna move huge amounts of sand and have toppled rock piles that I thought were very stable. I now put the base rocks directly on the glass or on eggcrate plastic grid to make sure they won't move at all.


----------

