# Completed 135 DIY Background



## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

I didn't want to post this until it was done and setup, now finally I can post it.

It's a completely removable background made of styrofoam and concrete, not siliconed to the glass and not buoyant in the least, it sinks like a stone, which is what I wanted should I ever have to move. It features a tube for an airline, hidden compartment for the air diffuser, hidden centre compartment for maxijet powerhead to provide current for the centre of the tank and over the plants with a magnetic "rock" door that can be taken off for maintenance, spots where two intakes and outakes for (currently using) two eheim 2217 canister filters, and a separated planted area with 6 different levels of ecocomple substrate which are continuous and flowing into each other, numerous caves along the sides and back with tahitian moon sand as a substrate.

Hope you enjoy as much as I do, however pictures rarely give these justice.


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## littlejoenc (Jan 11, 2005)

Very nice... Great job...


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## mightyevil (Oct 23, 2008)

If only the pictures were a little bigger we could appreciate it more as we can not see much detail.
Whatever I can see does look very nice and the green looks like real algae, good job!


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## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

It is real algae!!! with my already established canister filter algae began to grow within 2 days. It's only been set up for about 6 weeks. You must excuse the size of the photos as I am on dial up and any bigger and it takes 45 minutes to upload, you can click on the pic and open it to zoom in, they are not grainy when blown up to full screen size.


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## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

never mind, they are, photobucket must have shrunk them even further than they were, since I was able to zoom in on them from my hard drive without issue. I'll try an post some bigger ones soon.


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## Amazilia (Sep 5, 2009)

Beautiful tank nipzie! Nice job. I don't know if you did this but when I tried photobucket I opened in photobucket then clicked on to copy link and that gave a good size pic. How did you get the actual pics on? I can only ever get the link?
Again Beautiful tank!

:fish: :fish: :fish: =D>


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## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

thanks. I selected the pics then created img codes for them and copied and pasted.


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## mightyevil (Oct 23, 2008)

Wow! that algae is super green in some places, what kind of lights do you have on there? How did you achieve it? My algae is always poo brown :lol: .

So you didn't use the codes that this site has? You created your own HTML coding for pictures? Just click on the Img button on the top of the window where you are writing and copy paste then click the Img button again to close the code and you should have pictures that we can click on. Or instead of clicking on the picture in photobucket just hover over it and all the codes should appear on the bottom of it and copy the one that says direct link, no need to click on the picture.


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## michebai (Jun 1, 2009)

Is the whole tank artifical background? How did you get it to sink so you didn't have to silicone it? I would love to be able to remove mine when I do it! I love all of the detail you put into this, it is exactly the look I'm going for!

Very nice job! I'd love to see more pictures as well. Can you post the Photobucket link?


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## michebai (Jun 1, 2009)

Is the whole tank artifical background? How did you get it to sink so you didn't have to silicone it? I would love to be able to remove mine when I do it! I love all of the detail you put into this, it is exactly the look I'm going for!

Very nice job! I'd love to see more pictures as well. Can you post the Photobucket link?


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## mightyevil (Oct 23, 2008)

I looked up your photobucket page and it seems that the size of the pictures you have got here are as big as they are going to get. You should increase the size of your pictures on your camera by setting it at a larger mega pixel rate. It seems that you may be taking pictures with a camera phone and I don't think you can do much about it unless you edit the picture before uploading it to photobucket.


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## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

Mightyevil

The lights are 2 coralife 50/50 10,000K/Actinic bulbs for 4 feet above the planted area, then a regular fluorescent tube over the rest just to light the fish, colour is greener the higher up the rock is. The IMG code photobucket makes is the same as the one you make here with the surrounding it, just you can select all of the ones you want and do img codes for them all at once then copy and paste into the box here. The photobucket ones are much grainier (as in not even comparable) than the ones on the usb stick, which is where I uploaded from, almost like it reduced the size as I uploaded. I have the setting on the Nikon way down but I will enlarge the pic size and keep the MP down for the next set of pics, I just had image size set to small. More to come.

michebai

I got it to sink by reducing the foam volume. You can do this two ways, acetone the styrofoam after a base coat skin of concrete is hardened or like I did with a soldering iron tip that took forever and stunk like no other while by the window with a fan blowing alone since no one else wanted to smell it. Adds quite a few days to the work but I did not want to silicone it or destroy it if I wanted to move it. Also, a 6 foot tank is heavy enough to move. I couldn't use acetone for the caves I attached to the back piece, so I melted and minimized the volume of the rock outcroppings. Every one of the outcroppings is either a cave, planted hollow that got filled with eco complete, fry trap, or equipment concealing area.


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## michebai (Jun 1, 2009)

Wow, that is truly amazing! I envy you, lol. I'm going to be trying to do one soon but I'm still trying to find products in Canada that are comparable to the products I've heard people using on here.

I don't supposed you know anything about SikaLatex? I bought it thinking of the Sika Top Seal 107 but when I got back to Canada I realized it wasn't the right stuff. I thought maybe I could use it as a sealer but no one has been able to give any insight yet. I might just have to get the Sika Top Seal 107 and pay the hefty price it comes with, lol.

I can't wait to start my project and can only hope it turns out half as good as yours!


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## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

michebai

In response to your earlier question that I didn't answer, it is background around all sides with a pile of black granite rock on both sides.

Never used sikalatex, but if you go to Home Hardware ask for a bag of "sand mix" concrete. It is premeasured sand and cement for a mix with that only has small aggregate, no big gravel chunks. Lowe's carries the blue styrofoam, Home Depot the Pink. I should have gotten the blue, since it is less obtrusive to cover up than the pink, it just made me put a skim coat of white silicone over the backs so I wouldn't see that pink at the sides and back.

Go to Home hardware and buy Weathershield brand silicone in the 3 pack for $9.97, it says for aquarium use right on it, like Mcdaphnia said on your other thread, you could use wax paper or even cling wrap (cling wrap for concrete, anyway) to cover your mold shape. If you want a sealer that is safe for ponds and potable water cisterns try King's Xypex High n' Dry as an admix into your concrete as you mix in the water. These are all available in Canada, since I am as well and these are the things I used.


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## michebai (Jun 1, 2009)

Perfect! Thank you sooooo much, I'm super excited right now. I'm going to start on my background next weekend 

I just adopted a hedgehog that is using the 33 gallon tank that I was going to setup the background in so I'm going to have to do some moving around with the fish to get this done now, lol.

I'm sure 4 Kribensis will survive in a 15 gallon tank for a few weeks right?


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## nipzie (Nov 24, 2008)

not sure on kribensis since I've only ever kept mbuna, but leaving a tank empty with no territory to defend and only turning the light on for an hour a day to feed (wait 30 for them to wake up, feed, wait 30 minutes for them to digest) keeps the aggression down for them and also fattens them up if they are stressed from fighting/breeding has always worked for me. I had 50 fish in a 65 gallon for their move, but they were only in it for about a week. With a 33 you can probably silicone the background in, since it won't be too heavy to move at that size. It'll save a heck of a lot of work if you're going the styrofoam/concrete method and want to make it removable. Just not worth it at that manageable a size IMHO. Just remember if you are making caves, you must make an opening at the absolute highest and absolute lowest points as a minimum, and make the lowest point one bigger. The reasoning behind this is:
a.) to let air escape through the top so that when you fill it water will flood the entire cave so that the fish can actually use it

b.) The bigger hole at the lowest point will allow water to drain when you empty it

c.) by sloping the rest of the cave to the lowest point where the largest point is fish will be gently and slowly kicked out of the cave

and finally

d.) to prevent an isolated pool of water inside the cave that a fish could get trapped in unbeknown to you as you change water in/empty/move or maintain the tank.

This actually takes alot of planning and time. working on this one, not including concrete cure time took me 6 weeks of fairly steady work, and I'd already done 2 before so I had all the techniques and tools down pat. Just a rock face with spaces to cover equipment, you could do in a weekend as most on here do.

Good luck.


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