Styrofoam/Cement Background

[DonnieP]

Same here!

Matak
I found the same thing to be true, as ejmeier said, with the tank lights on, the rocks cast thier own shadows, this is the reason for giving them so much depth, no need to darken the crevices, the light and shadows do it for you as in nature..It really looks cool with the actinic 03 lights on..The depth and shadows don't show up good in the photos because the flash illuminated everything..

 

[Matak]

I never considered that. I wonder if it would make sense to accentuate the shadows with bigger valleys than peaks to take advantage of the shadow effect? Maybe a series of snaking peaks or a series of joined ridges with much wider valleys?

 

[ejmeier]

Originally posted by drew22to375
The most realistic background I have seen is on on one of the africain sites. It was done exactly like you but for the final cement/sand mixture he added a little bit sof some kind of dye and it really brought out the rocks and used different clors of black and browns on different rocks. might want to think about that next time. can't rmmember what kind of dye I think it was a fabric dye.

Is this the site you are referring to?http://www.african.uklinux.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=1926&forum=25&start=0

I think that this background is pretty amazing too, but I can't figure what dye he used! I don't think his english is very good, he keeps referring to soap as "saop" and stuff like that.

If anyone knows what type of dye can be used to color these backgrounds, that would be helpful. Sounds like he was mixing the dye with water and sponged it on the concrete to give a more realistic look. I did find some concrete dye at the hardware store, but after seeing that it contained .01% fungicide or something like that I got nervous and decided against it.

 

[DonnieP]

The dye he used!

He used ritz cement dye to sponge his on! I did'nt care for the highlights as I knew the tank lights would do the same thing.. If you note in my article that I used Quikrete Quickwall for my cement, all I could find this in was white so I added Quikrete dry black cement color to mine to get the gray color otherwise it would have been solid white.. The cement color can be found at Home Depot along with the Quickwall..

If you want the highlights, simply mix some of the dry color with water and sponge it on after the last coat of cement has set for awhile...

 

[Dado]

I've heard people using styrofoam backgrounds to hide their equipment such as a heater, filter tubes etc. I was wondering how can u have good water flow to the back of the aquarium, since u need to leave space for the equipment at the back. Even if u make holes or space out the styrofoam blocks, then your fish can get behind the background, and then u can't see your fish. Can anyone tell me exactly how this background can work, without encountering the problems I listed as a possibility?

 

[DonnieP]

Its simple!

Dado
I have no space behind my background because my tank was a saltwater reeftank and has an overflow in the corner and a sump underneath, all heaters and such are in the sump and the return pump from the sump creates all the current I need..In answer to your question though, I have noticed that some of the commercial 3/D backgrounds that are sold for hundreds of dollars have a screen at the bottom of the tank where water enters and one at the top where water exits the heater behind the background..The heater would make its own current since warm water rises..

This could be accomplished by simply hollowing out a spot for a piece of two inch pvc pipe on the back of the background to serve to hold the heater screened at top and bottom with fiberglass screen, same for a powerhead...

 

[ejmeier]

What I did was put the main background flush with the back, but let it only cover like 90% of the back. Then I put a piece in front of this that covered the rest of the tank, creating a gap of about 10% of the tank. The pocket is maybe 3"l x 2"w and in here I squeezed my heater and the intake for my power filter. The filter intake then makes enough water current to carry away the hot water from the heater.

But you ARE right, my fish can get UNDER my background. I couldn't make the background fit all the way to the bottom, but I thought the rocks would fill in this gap. Turns out the lava rocks are so large that my clown loaches can squeeze in between them and can sort of hang out under my background - kind of an annoying oversight that I forgot about.

But my overlapping piece of styrofoam creates a gap for the heater/filter etc. is also offset by a few inches below the main background, and is underneath the water level. So new water flows OVER the top of the overlapped piece and into the filter intake.

Does this make sense?

 

[Matak]

Cement or mortar colour can be obtained at any decent building supply or masonry supply store. What about tile grout? If you made a thick slurry of the stuff and painted it on. What if you mixed in a coarse sand, like a silica or a concrete sand to give it more texture?

 

[ejmeier]

Okay, I just pulled back all of the rocks from the back wall, and I filled in the gap along my background with sand. Now I can actually see my Clown Loaches!

This was really annoying, and with my Tiger Oscar throwing rocks around, I would not be surprised if he inadvertently trapped a fish down there - but that can't happen anymore.

Plus, my Pleco that I haven't seen since I added him almost a week ago is now visible. Welcome home, my son... sniff.. sniff....