IceCap Chicken Bone Stone, 44 lbs

1. Open your IC-CBS shipping box outside or in a garage area, as natural stone collection generates minor rock dust and small transit chips during cross-country freight.
2. Transfer the stones into a large utility bucket and rinse each piece thoroughly with a high-pressure garden hose or tap faucet to remove loose clay and soil sediment. Do not use any soaps, bleaches, or chemical cleaners.
3. Arrange your dry stones on a soft towel or cardboard template outside the tank to map out your hardscape layout before moving the pieces into the fragile glass aquarium.
4. Set your bottom-most foundation stones carefully onto the glass floor inside the tank. Pro Tip: Lay down a plastic light-diffuser grid (egg crate) beneath heavy rocks to distribute weight and protect the bottom glass pane.
5. Stack your secondary stones into position, making sure each piece feels fully stable, and lock them together with aquarium-safe gel or epoxy putty at key contact joints if building steep cliffs.
6. Slowly add your aquarium substrate around the rock bases, place a plastic bag over the stones to break the incoming water stream, and fill the tank gently to prevent washing out your hardscape structure.

Pro Tips:

• Utilize an Egg Crate Grid Underneath Heavy Stone Footprints. Before building massive, multi-tiered rock formations with a 44lb box of Chicken Bone Stone, head to your local hardware store and pick up a plastic fluorescent light diffuser grid (often called egg crate). Cut a piece to match the footprint of your rock structures and lay it directly on the bare bottom glass before adding your sand or gravel. This grid acts as a structural shock absorber, distributing the heavy pinpoint weight of the rocks evenly across the glass and preventing sharp points from causing stress cracks if a stone slips during installation.
• Leverage the Hyper-Porous Structure to Hide Frag Plugs or Root Systems. The cratered surface of Chicken Bone Stone is filled with small micro-cavities that make it incredibly easy to blend live elements into the hardscape. For instance, you can trim down the stems of your favorite aquarium plants or mosses and tuck them straight into the natural holes in the rock without needing string or glue. The deep pockets protect the early roots from grazing fish, allowing them to establish a firm grip quickly and grow naturally across the rock face.
• Pre-Glue Moss to Stones Outside the Tank Using Superglue Gel. Trying to tie aquatic moss to slippery or deeply pitted stones with fishing line inside a wet aquarium is an exercise in frustration. Instead, take your washed, completely dry Chicken Bone Stones and apply a few small dots of a cyanoacrylate-based superglue gel (like Gorilla Super Glue Gel) directly onto the rock faces. Press small, damp tufts of Christmas or Java Moss directly onto the glue dots for 10 seconds. The glue cures instantly upon contact with moisture, letting you place perfectly decorated, living stones right into your aquascape layout.