Would it hurt my tank if I glued flagstone to the back?

[Jeremy S]

I was thinking about taking some thin flagstone and gluing it with silicon to the inside back of my ten-gallon tank. Do you think that would put too much stress on the glass? Thanks.

[slipknottin]

theres no way silicone would bond it to the glass... id be worried about them falling off and either crushing fish, your hand, or busting through the bottom glass.

[Jeremy S]

There is some aquarium safe glue that can hold to almost anything including glass and rock. I got some at the hardware store and used it to glue our driftwood to some flagstone. So if I used that do you think it would hurt the tank with all that weight on the back pane of glass?

[slipknottin]

silicone wont bond to rock very well at all... Ive tried.

epoxy bonds to rocks, but isnt sticky at all, and wont bond to glass very well...

[Mcdaphnia]

What you can use is a mixture of portland cement and dolomite chips or other auquarium gravel. You can permanently bond this in place in the aquarium if you wish, by building it inside a dry aquarium. I prefer to build it just slightly smaller than the tank in a box or wood frame in two or more interlocking pieces. This would allow you to remove it for maintenance, or to transfer it to a new tank when the old one becomes too scratched and old, or if it develops a leak. It's almost impossible to repair a leak in a tank with a bonded on background.

Be sure the interlocking pieces are each samll enough to be owered into the aquarium past the center braces and that the interlock is not so complex that it can't be assembled and disassembled.

Drape plastic wrap over the inside of the box so that there is no sticking and to create the interlocking pieces, use at least a double layer of plastic wrap between each segment. After curing is complete, remove as much of the plastic wrap as you can. if some of it gets trapped in a fold out of site, you can leave it in place or grind it out with a Dremel tool.

[rockhead44]

great idea Mcdaphnia
Thanks

[slipknottin]

that seems like an awful lot of weight for a 10 gallon tank......

But it sounds like it works great and has quite the visual effect in larger tanks.

[Mcdaphnia]

It's not something I invented. You can learn a lot volunteering at a public aquarium. This is one I learned there. I even learned a bit about dressing this up for a marine display by making very natural looking fake sponges (mix diatomaceous earth into two phase epoxy paint) and other stuff.

[Mcdaphnia]

There are a few things you can do to disperse the weight across the bottom. I had a few of those cute 15 gallon cubes. One had a heavy piece of driftwood in it. SeaWorld had a Tank Beautiful Show for aquarium hobbyists and that tank took first place. It eventually cracked the bottom twice, so there are good reasons to disperse the weight.

One is to glue a piece of glass at least 1/4 inch thick and at least slightly thicker than the bottom glass on top of the bottom glass with silicone sealant.

Another is to put a piece of "egg crate" light grid on the bottom of the tank. It won't disperse the weight as well as the first, but it will do something.

My favorite though is to insinuate bits of styrofoam insulation into the background or driftwood piece. Don't overdo it to the point the piece floats, but you can make it just 90% or more of the weight is countered by the lift of the styrofoam.

[superstein61]

Instead of using actual flagstone - why don't you make your own "artifical" rock background out of styrofoam / or extruded polyurethane. Carve it, color it and seal with Epoxy and sand.

Its lightweight, harmless to the fish - and looks great

[tyler]

does anybody have any pictures of these structures?

[Mcdaphnia]

There is an analog to this thread with URL's to pictures and instructions for various methods at Compuserve's Aquaria/Fishnet http://forums.compuserve.com/vlforums/default.asp?SRV=Fishnet