My DIY Aquarium Background (WARNING PIC HEAVY)

DSMarioMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

Well I said I was gonna do a log on my New tank and here it is at long last. I'm not done yet and its till a work in progress so try to keep the neg comments to a minimum. lol

So to start off I got a nice "new" (to me) tank off of a co-worker for a pretty good deal.... i got all his aquaium stuffs and the stand, tank, filter, fake plants, auto feeder.... blah blah blah etc ... for about 50$. Its about a 42 Gal. tank, perfect for the Cichlid community i been wanting to start.

The tank was in some rough shape when i got it and i forgot to take some pictures before i started workin on it but here goes.

the hole back of the tank and one side was covered in old rotting cork that the last owner had as a background.

They had also for some odd reason had build a shelf in the tank that was about half the hight of the tank and took up about 1/4 of the space in the tank. I promptly ripped out the shelf, it was ugly, took up too much room and had to go.

This is the shelf i took out, Note that the hole back and one side looked like this shelf. All in all it took me hours of work scraping all the old scilicone off the back and side of the tank to get it into a somewhat decient shape for me to start.

heres a picture of the filter that i got with it... unfortunatly i cleaned it up before i thought about doing the log. It too was in really bad shape... looked as tho they had never cleaned it before..ever, was pretty gross.

And last but not least the tank canopy... Still in bad shape. I opted not to use it for this new tank.. soooo now that the horror show is done i can get on to the background..

Now for the supplies i used:
- Quickrete 10lb tub
- Liquid Cement colour (Charcole and Red)
- 2in thick white styrifome
- 8ft piece of egg crate. (explained firther along)
- 3in paint brush (firm bristle)
- 1in paint brush cut to about half of a inch
- Large mixing bowl for mixing the cement.
- A stake knife for cutting the styrifome.
- and a hair dryer to even out the sirface.
- oh and some aquarium safe silicone

ok i like pictures so heres the supplies so you can see them.

First off i cut myself a piece of that 2in styrifome to the size of the back of my tank and drew out a randome rock formation on it with a sharpie... I'm not going to hid the filter and what not because i want to save space in the tank for the fish and to hide my plumbing i would need to make the background thicker.

I must have stared at the piece for like 2 hours, i just dint know where to start or for that matter how to start.. lol. So i got myself a scrap piece of styrifome and drew a pattern on it and tryed to carve it to get a feel for carving my background....
Here is the piece i praticed on... i'm not to artistic so forgive me it dont look much like a rock lol.

After my little success with my pratice piece i decided to have at'er on the real background. I carved for about a hour and a half and decided to stop and take a picture for you all on the site.. Very Happy

Now warning to all thats gonna attempt this..... it is really messy, i mean crazy messy.... i still finding white balls of styrifome now and its been almost a week since i carved it. Try to clean up as you go to lessen the mess in the long run. Thats all i have to say about that lol. Heres a picture of some of the mess i swept up after carving but 3 rocks..

Once i got about half way done the carving I had to take a brake because sitting on the floor carving can get quite uncomfortable.. I decided it was time to show you all what i bought the egg crate for and for that matter what egg crate is.. Most of the time you will see egg crate used in office buildings or work places on the ceilling for lighting fixtures or for drop ceillings... I on the other hand am going to use this stuff for the lid of my tank and for the inside bottom of my tank... this is going to be a cichlid tank and as such will have alot of rock matter in the bottom... The theroy is that the egg crate will spread the weight of the rock evenly accross the hole bottom of the tank and that no rock substrate will be resting on the glass itself. heres a picture of the bottom and top with the egg crate.

And as you can see i was gettin abit excited so i wanted to see what the background would look like in the tank so i put it in and took a picture for you all out there. Very Happy

This is the first layer of cement applyed to the background. I used a small spray bottle with water to moisten it through the process inorder to make sure the backgound cement harden well and so it wont crack... the thing about cement is that if you keep it moist though the curing process it makes it much stronger and i want my background to last so i kept it moist for the recomended 48 hours. For the first coat you make the cement mix quite runny to fill all the cracks on the second layer its much thicker inorder to make your backgrond stronger... so make deep cuts because the second layer may take some of your detail away and you may regret it...

Well my camra kinda crapped out for awhile and i wasent able to take pictures for you all on the second layer of cement but i did get it working today and i took a picture of it now.. what i am doing at the moment is making the lower parts of the rocks darker, I will be doing a red layer next then cover it all again with plain cement.. hopefully i achieve a somewhat realistic rock look when i am all done with it..

Dont worry it looks bad at the moment but this is only one stage in the colouring and it wont stay like that at all..

Well thats it for now, hope u all injoyed it so far. I will be keeping this updated as i get closer to finishing it... Oh and copecetic this is the tank i'm going to put your fish in so not to long now before i come see you for some fish..

Cheers, Matt

nebthet · Member Joined: 21 Apr 2008 Posts: 375 Location: Belleville

Your egg crate idea is absolutely brilliant!!! I will have to remember that one.
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**FishEd** · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 1:12 am Post subject:

Looking good so far! I'm interested to see the finished product!
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DSMarioMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

Ya egg crate is some nice stuff, because of the lips on most aquaiums can make a nice inexpensive yet attractive lid for a tank, all u need to is add a light and when used under your gravle or substrate can distriubte the weight of the load without any pressure points on the glass.... tho i cant take credit for all that i had alot of advice on these things as i went... its a simple idea and really easy to do... all u need is a pair of cutters, works wonders..

we will see how it works when i get the full load in.

Anyhow cheers, Matt

Morgoth · Member Joined: 19 May 2008 Posts: 123 Location: Kingston

Egg Crate - I really like that. Looks really nice so far, can't wait to see the end product!

DSMarioMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

Well its time again for another update to my DIY background topic.. Very Happy

So here goes... I had a 2 day weekend at my disposal and i decided to work on the background again. Stage 2 in the colouring process..Red cement was applyed to the background... looked horriable lol.. but as i said before only a step in making it look good... heres a picture for ya.

ugly aint it.... anyways....after the 2nd layer of cement(Red) dryed I continued on with the final step... a batch of normal cement uncoloured... my hope was to have just a small ammount of the red and black show through so that it would make the rock look abit more natural... i stippled the cement(vigiours dabbing) on the background for the final layer.. heres a peek at it.

After the final layer was all said and done i wasent quite satisfied with the crispness of the background so i went over it with abit of black in some areas that i felt needed it just as a final touch...... i placed it in the tank and took a picture to show everyone what the final product will look like.. i will be glueing it in this comming weekend once i can locate the silicone i had bought for it....

And there it is! its nothing special but i think my fish will like it... I will do another update as i fill it and put the rest of the rocks, etc. in. It will take a few weeks for the ph to go down but i'm gonna try to speed it up abit.

anyways this is just a quick update before i head off to work, I will make a better explination of the whole process when i get some time to myself.

Oh and i had also cleaned up the tank with some vingar and a scrubby, to make it shine Very Happy

Cheers, Matt

DSMarioMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

Well just a quick update, I glued the background in and filled it with water about a week ago, added the gravel and rock and some salt to help the ph go down faster... and been testing it regularly. My ph has been a steady 7.8-8.0 for the past few days... went much faster then i expected so.. i preped the tank for some fish..

I took about 35pct of the water out of the new tank and dumped it... then i took water form my main established tank out to fill my new cichilid tank back up, in order to cycle the tank much faster... I also at the same time took one stage(bio beeds) of my established 5 stage filter and added it to the cichlid tanks filter to help with cycle aswell.

I cut holes in the egg crate lid to allow the filter and a air line to pass through.. there is about 35 pounds of rock, 22 pounds of gravel(black).
i also added a bubble wall (thank you fished) and some jungle vall to one corner. You cant really see the bubble wall in the picture but is makes a really nice effect and the bubbles are pretty small so it dont obstruct the view of the background.

In the tank atm i have 2 golden algae eaters and 4 yellow labs.. i will be moving the rocks around and adding a piece of drift wood to the tank once i get the rest of the stock for the tank... so i guess your all tired of my talkin now so i will show ya a picture... its not really done but its close enuff for you all to get a idea... total cost of the tank so far has been about 115$ should be closer to 150$ once i done with the stocking... not bad for what i get in the end..

There are currently 3 large caves for the fish and everyone seems to be pretty happy with them.. the golden algae eaters and the labs are getting along not to bad at present. Looks as tho i have 2 males and 2 females at the moment but only time will tell..

Well thats it for now, any questions or comments are more then welcome... I'll be more then happy to answer them if i can.

Cheers, Matt

DSMarioMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

just a couple of day time shots the night one was abit dark.

**FishEd** · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject:

Well done. That turned out really nice! You cant tell they arent real rocks! Smile

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jim_j_canuck · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject:

You did an awesome job there. Luv it

Katz · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 13 Location: Trenton, ON

Wow babe I can't believe how great the tank looks...to be honest I was so skeptical when you brought the idea home of staring a tank from scratch and using Styrofoam and cement for the background. Now I am glad you did it, now just to add more fish and gotta remove the veggie clip next pic you take LOL.
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**ausername** · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:28 pm Post subject:

Just so you know yellow labs like guitar hero so.. might wanna move the guitar.. its kind of taunting them.

**FishEd** · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject:

DSMarioMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

Lmao i'll have to keep that in mind, maby i can get a jam session goin with them. Very Happy

**ausername** · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 2:47 pm Post subject:

No.. Thats when labs get overly agressive.. They will bite your eyes out if you win.. dont try it!