Styrofoam decor?

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Lalaland

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I'm thinking about making my 40g a nice home for a pair of Convicts. I'l like to give them good hiding spots, but I'm not to wild about the whole clay pot technique. I went window-shopping for natural looking decor that I could use, but it is prohibitely expensive. A little square 5 inch plastic cave runs up to $10-15 CDN.

I know people make 3D styrofoam backdrops by carving it, then painting with some kind of resin and sprinkling sand to give it that nice natural look. Is it possible to use the same technique to make other kinds of decor, like rocks and caves?

I'm just wondering (if anybody has tried it) how they did it and what the result were. It would be nice to save some money and to get something exactly the way I want it at the same time.
 
it will work if your artistic enough to make it look natural. i cant so i just got a lot of slate and siliconed them to ledges, caves and stuff. plus the styrafoam would float unless you glued it down or used even more rocks.
 
I generally vote no on styrofoam usage myself. Rocks are generally best for cichlids IMHO. Slate is a good rock medium to work with I think. Lavarock would be another alternative.
 
If you are willing to go through the mess of carving out styrofoam, go for it... just remember to glue it to the bottom of your tank (via aquarium safe silicon, etc.) to ensure that it won't float to the top.

Check this link for some info on using styrofoam as decore. Quite a few people actually use it for Paludariums.

HTH
-Richer
 
Thanks, that link looks really cool, I'll sit down with a cup of coffee and go over it in detail tonight.

I'll try it out just to see if I can get any good results. If not, meh, stick it to experience. :p
 
What I did with my tank was tank chunks of styrofoam and cut them and silicone them into rocklike formations and then cover them in cement and sand and then siliconed it to the back of the tank. I used some of the cement coloring stuff to subtly change the colors of the cement from the boring grey to suble browns, blacks, blues, oranges and a couple of other combinations. That plus the algae that grew in some of the cracks gives it a completely natural look to it. My cichlids seem to love the caves and rocks.

Here is a pic of the "rocks". There is a couple of piles of slate in front of the background rocks.

Matt

tank.jpg
 
What kind of cemet did you use? Also, did you seal the styrofoam with any sort of epoxy or is the cement acting as the sealant?

It looks pretty cool in the picture, especially combined with the slate.
 
I read several internet posts on cement rocks & caves and combined them all to make up my own design. I used chunks of styrofoam siliconed together in interesting shapes with the clear-non mildew stuff.

The cement is quickrete quickdrying cement, I mixed it with some of the coloring agents and acrylic fortifying stuff, (sorry for all the almost names, I did it so long ago I'm trying to remember the exact stuff off the top of my head), I mixed up varying colors of the stuff in very small batches.

The first layer of the cement was the hardest to put on. The acrylic fortifier stuff makes it stick to the styrofoam better, I used a very thin watery layer to cover all the styrofoam up with, after that i made larger batches of thick stuff to cover all of it up, I left the rocks and gravel in the cement it gave the final rock a very natural look to it.

The colros were all subtle shades of black, grey, orange, and blue, I was hoping for brighter colors originally, but as time went on different types of algae grew in some of the small crevices in the surface creating an extremely realistic looking rock wall. There is also some caves and holes and stuff in the wall for the fish to hide in.

I am planning on making on for a bigger tank someday and will be making a complete online documumentation for it this time. Not for several years though as getting a new house is more important though.

I almost forgot, the whole contraption is siliconed to the back glass so it doesn't float up. It is a permanent part of the tank now.


Matt
 
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I know it raises the Ph, but I also have some driftwood that leaches tannins in the water, these lower the Ph. I also do weekly 50% water changes, so I don't have Ph swings in either direction very often. In my testing id did raise the Ph but in my situation it isn't effecting my water paramaters to any noticible degree.


Matt
 
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