# DIY Background *Warning, lots of pictures - May load slow*



## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

Allright, since I have been waiting around for a deal on a big tank to work on I have decided to make a background for a 20g I have had laying around and turn it into a shellie tank. Me being me, I dove in right away, and made one very fast and was unhappy with how it turned out, so I pulled it out tossed it in the trash and started over. I will try to post pictures of the process as I make the background.

Here is what I have to work with









Tools Im using









Here is a picture of the first background that was thrown out. 









After the first attempt I decided to actually think about it a little before diving in. I decided to take a much simpler/more crude approach and I already like it much better.

I used 1" pink foam insulation for everything and learned that carefully carving out rocks into a stryo-sandwich is not the way to go. I first decided how i wanted the background to set in the tank and cut foam to fit. Next I just made a ton of rocks all with a flat back to silicon to the stryo later.

I took a very unconventional approach to making rocks. I liked the results and it took a fraction of the time as carving them all separate.

I first took a small piece of stryo and just hacked away with a saw for a VERY rough shape. 









Make sure to cut some angles into it. But NO detail.









Next comes the unconventional/dangerous/detailing/lazy approach. I used a propane torch to melt the stryo a little. I used very quick bursts with the torch as styrofoam is flammable. IF YOU DO THIS BE VERY CAREFUL. HAVE A WATER SOURCE CLOSE BY. It took me about a minute per rock and I was very pleased with the results. Make sure you leave one surface flat for siliconing to the flat sheets of the background.









I then laid out all the rocks and put a very thin layer of quickrete on them









Next I laid out the back of the background flat and just started playing around with the rocks messing with different arrangements. This is actually 3 separate pieces, the middle overlaps the seams of both sides, so when the background is installed both sides can be installed, then the middle can set in overtop covering the seam.









They were then siliconed on and torched again, this added alot of depth to the background and made the spaces between rocks very deep. I also decided to add some pockets that fish could hide in, with shadowing they will just look like deep crevices in the rock. I then put my first layer of colored concrete on to start the coloring process of the middle. (dont have a pic of this, sorry)

Once It was dry I decided to do some rough carving of my side peices and silicone the right back and side together, and the left back and side together, and set them all up in the tank to set up so I can finish the background without worrying about covering the places i need to silicone. I used some stryo strips to wedge between the glass and the background to hold everything tight while the silicone cures. You can also see the depth of the background in this picture.









Note the small open area in the corner, It will be used as a mini overflow type thing for where the heater and filter intake will be, water will be able to flow into this area by cracks in the rock going there, a fine plastic mesh will be used on the backside to keep fish out.









This is what the background looks like currently. 









I will keep posting updates as I add rocks, color, and get closer to completion. 
If you have any questions or concerns with what I am doing please feel free to call me out on it.

Hope you all like it thus far.


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## blkg35 (Jun 2, 2008)

Its looks good so far. Keep us updated with more pics...


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## JWerner2 (Jul 7, 2008)

Hmm... I'm quite interested to know why my post disappeared again.

Well I thought it was a nice one anyway.

Nice work and I like the way it curves that is different from the norm for sure.


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

Thanks, I plan to work on it more tonight, maybe get some more rocks on and do a little more concrete...

JWerner2, what do you mean your posts are dissapearing?

Thank thanks for the comment about how it wraps around. I am hoping it adds to its depth as it is only a 20H and only 12" deep.


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## JWerner2 (Jul 7, 2008)

Well, I posted before that last one and it disappeared and the same thing happened to me the other day.

I thought maybe I said something wrong and a mod got rid of it but I couldn't have :-?

oh well I just explained how my first backgrounds that I started were just single layers of foam that I burned grooves in to make look like crevices in the face of some rock wall and after I started making more intricate ones I let the kids tear apart foam outside so I didnt get all anal over detail 

Also, craft store have different shapes to help some people out a bit with something to work with.


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

All right, so I did not get as far as planned tonight. I really just played around with some of the rocks, made a few new ones for places that needed them and my others didnt fit, and siliconed some rocks to the sides.

I made sure to make the sides kind of curve towards the back. Im hoping that this will give the illusion that the tank is much deeper than it actually is.



















Here is a shot from above the tank, so you can see how the background sits inside and kinda wraps around.










And finally this is what it looks like at the end of tonight, some of the rocks in the bottom left corner are just sitting there and are not siliconed, not sure If I like them or not, I will decide after I torch between the rocks for depth what I want to do.










I may not do much during the week as school takes up a lot of my time. I am going to try to at least get all of the rocks in place and ready to be completely covered in cement. Who knows how far I will get tho.


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## Hoosier Tank (May 8, 2007)

Looks great so far, I wonder how bouyant all that foam is going to be even with the concrete on it. Make sure to attach it REAL well. And two more things....
1. With a title like that on a post how could I keep away! Love pics of DIY's :thumb: 
2. Now you got me wanting to mess with one of my lowly 10g's for my shellies!!


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## JWerner2 (Jul 7, 2008)

Im really liking that color!


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

Thanks for the compliments *Hoosier Tank* :thumb: I have pleanty of surface silicone to the glass. I think it should be sufficient. I have already thought of it however, put together it dfits pretty snug under the rim of the tank and the three pieces is in lock together pretty well. I think this should combat the coming unstuck and surging toward the surface knocking off the glass lid, lights, and filter issue that could happen if it were not secured well. Haha. And I must admit, there was motive to the title other than warning people about slow loading, haha. Who doesnt love lots of pictures? :lol: I think you should defiantly try some shellies in your 10g. If you do a background i would suggest possibly making the rocks separate like i did, but instead of siliconing them to a piece of foam, siliconing them directly to the glass. As long as you have cracks in the rock if the back of the tank is painted black it should give your depth. I thought of this after i started, but I also like that i have little crevices and caves fish can hide in.


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

Allright, now that exams are finally done for school I can get this project wrapped up over break. I did not get as much as I hoped to get done tonight but oh well, its moving again. I really just cleaned it up a bit, finished up the rocks on it, made a couple hollow rock modules, and got it prepped to be concreted. Everything is ready to be concreted at this point. Tomarrow I will get the whole thing cemented real well and then start mixing up my colors. Once that layer is dry I will start doing the shading and everything. I think it should turn out well.

Heres a picture from the top so you can get an idea of how it curves around.










Right side










Left Side










What it looks like right now.










Hopefully by the end of the weekend it will be ready to be siliconed in.


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## yellow (Mar 3, 2004)

very nice so far.


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## pmac (Dec 1, 2008)

Looks awesome so far, I'm starting a DIY background for my 115 soon. I read a post on here from someone that used Sikatop for painting the styrofoam instead of concrete, claiming it doesn't leech into the water quite as much. I mentioned it to a friend, and he just happened to have a bag of it from work. So I'm gonna see how it works out.

Keep up the good work though, it's looking good!


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

Allright, finally an update. I know its been a while since I said it would be done. I would tell you its totally finished now but I would be lying. I had some other large projects get in the way of this one. For christmas I got some nice HO PC Lights and a CO2 setup for a high tech planted. Naturally I ran out and picked up a used 55 right away. (and santa thought I would just convert my 60 :lol: ) This meant I needed a new stand for my tanks to keep them all out of the way as possible. I started building this stand for my room about a week or so ago, poly goes on tomarrow and it will be in my room with some tanks on it hopefully by tuesday.

I do not have any shots of it fully mocked up before I pulled it apart to stain and finish but these should give you an idea. There will be doors on the storage area to the left and its all closed in, just not in these pictures.





































Allright, on to the background. I am pretty much finished. After this batch of concrete cures I will be just doing some touchup, siliconing it into the tank. Then I will start leeching out the bad stuff.

I wish i had a better picture, these are not that great. The glass has stuff splattered all over it and the background looks MUCH better in person.










Hope you all like it. I know I do, but trust me. It looks MUCH better in person. These pictures didnt come out that great.


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## DNAagram (Jan 5, 2009)

Very nice, way better than your first attempt, which wasnt bad either. 

You could also try painting it in different hues to make it look even more natural. Even if you dont, algea will take care of that eventually... I look forward to seeing it running!


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

rhanks, there are actually a few different colors in there but since its wet its hard to tell. when the concrete is dry it will look better


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## brianmccord2001 (Apr 9, 2008)

I think it looks great, even if that is a bad picture. Looks like you have an empty space on that stand, what are you to do?

-Brian


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

a second 20g will be going next to the other. I havent decided if i want to go planted or possibly a small brackish setup for a dwarf puffer or two


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

Allright, its been a while but here it is. Its finished but soaking right now to leech off all the nasties. Hopefully by the end of the week i can get some shells and have some fish in it. The picture does not do it justice. Hope you all like it.


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## Curator (Feb 18, 2009)

Looks awesome


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## MightyWarMonger (Mar 20, 2007)

DNAagram said:


> Very nice, way better than your first attempt, which wasnt bad either.
> 
> You could also try painting it in different hues to make it look even more natural. Even if you dont, algea will take care of that eventually... I look forward to seeing it running!


They actualy make a coloring mix you put right into the quickrete comes in black,g brown, grey and some other color I cant remeber.

thanks for sharing zack it looks awsome and I will be making one for my 220 here soon and wanted to know how long it takes for all the stuff to leach out and how do you know when its finnished leaching?


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

yeah, i used the buff, red and charcoal dyes. I really didnt use much of the charcoal tho, nor much of the red either. I was trying to get a tannish brown orangish color and got pretty close, the pictures dont really show i tthat well however. I probley couldve done a better job but i was getting impatient and decided it was good enough


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## MightyWarMonger (Mar 20, 2007)

so how long dioes it take for the quickret to finish leaching/curing


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

not sure yet. Im still in the process. I will keep you updated when i find out


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## Maddog (Nov 7, 2008)

looks very nice man!
i dont have the balls to try somethign like that right now.


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## iceblue (Apr 27, 2004)

Great looking background Zack2112. :thumb:

I would start a fishless cycle and keep the lighting on day/night settings. As the bacteria grows it will help seal the structures locking in the hardness that is leaching into the water. You should also get some nice algae cover that will also help further seal the background.


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## Hoosier Tank (May 8, 2007)

=D> Been a long time coming but it is definately worth the wait!
Great looking tank. How did the stand turn out?


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## Zack2112 (Jul 11, 2008)

*MightyWarMonger*

My apologies, but I was terrible at tracking how long It took to leech. It took far longer then it should have because school was getting pretty crazy for a while. I think I changed the water 6 or 7 times.... but don't quote me on that. I wish I would have paid more attention to the process tho.

The tank is now cycled, the shells are in, and I have 5 multies to hopefully get a colony started. 3 males, 2 females, 36 shells. Just thought I would post an update of the finished product.

As usual, sorry about the less then great photography.










and the digging began...


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## fishyslc (Sep 3, 2008)

WOW, THAT LOOKS GREAT!!!!!!!!


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