DIY - Driftwood Cave

I read everywhere BN's need driftwood AND breeding caves - so I thought why not combine the two!
This has probably been done many times, but I'm not finding much on web and thought I'd share... BN Daddy enjoys it so much I cannot take it from the tank without him (just as well they can do without water for quite awhile!) On that subject, does anyone know how long is safe?

I picked "just the right" piece of Mopani (personal choice), with adaption in mind.
I used my skill saw to roughly carve out the underneath, drill (up to the largest bit I had) and a dremel high speed cutter to get the cave wider & finish it off nicely. Just watch going too deep with drill bit (you can see my rookie mistake in 1st photo) Certainly didn't take them long to start using it, have wrigglers and she not stopping!!!

Last pic is of my young male and his seperate cave

Cool!
Yes, I did the same thing with a large piece of mopani, it was a lot of work with only a drill to work with (Mopani is some hard wood/ BTW I also keep Malaysian wood in with them for that very reason, I don't know if they can rasp off as much of the Mopani as they need).

Anyway, one of my males did raise one spawn in my labor of love, but once I put the 1" x 7" terra-cotta caves in, it was "sorry mom, we like store bought!" The babies do hang out in my home made cave though...

How are the gups? You mentioned only being able to import Asian, have you tried/can you get from ATFG? He has the best of the best, (and priced accordingly ) but I have no regrets spending the money to get some initial breeding stock from him, along with some from a USA breeder.

Sarah

I've spent hours trying to find who actually imports (quarantine is unbelievably strict here) but seems to be closely guarded secret
I think all our stock comes from China, there is the odd nice one but not anything "WOW". So tempted to smuggle right now...

Thanks for the tip about Malaysian wood, I will look at adding some soon. But I definately prefer the natural look so wont be buying caves, she has spawned twice already (thought she was too young yet) and getting bigger again! After spending time here, I now want to look at Long Finned's, oh my these are addictive...!