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19 Posts
I've been reading about the DiY backgrounds and gathering materials for a few months now and I'm ready to submit some of my plans and questions to the rest of you for comments and suggestions. Once I start I'll also use this for progress updates & images.
I'll be working with insulating foam sheets and Quickcrete Quickwall for the background and pvc for the jets. I have a spare 55g tank to use for the layout, prep, construction, and curing. I'm using a modified Peng. 330 HOB for filtration plus whatever mech. filtration having foam around the UGJ pump intake provides. Here are some of my interests and concerns that I haven't found enough information on:
Caves:
I plan to incorporate multiple caves into the background and I did read about Satin Macy's BG in the Library, but not a lot of attention was paid to the caves in words or images. Are there reasons outside of waste build up and the difficulty of catching fish not to incorporate caves? I've seen many of the BG projects, but caves as part of the BG seem rare which is odd considering the amount of mass available within the foam. I know there is an issue getting cement to stick in caves so I'm considering inserting various sizes of abs pipe sections into the foam. This should negate the need to coat the walls and I'll angle all the caves a bit to allow waste to fall out as fish enter and leave. I can use concrete to customize the openings and blend edges with the foam so I don't end up with a BG full of perfectly circular and obvious holes.
Sidewalls:
I've seen how building the background around to include the sidewalls can really add to the 3D effect, but that creates an issue with viewing the tank sides since I don't want a nice tank from the front with foam visible from the sides. Do you just paint the sides black and too bad if subtracts from the tank's overall look? I could build the sides from the back towards the front of the tank and angle the walls away from the sides as I get closer to the front of the tank so that I could get cement coated on the foam closest to the tank sides (I wouldn't keep the outside edges of the BG flat in this case), but then I end up with dead spots for waste unless I don't allow the sidewalls to reach sand level.
Tank Bottom & UGJs:
I'll be getting a Mag pump rated at around 700gph to push 3-4 jets. I'll leave cutouts behind the BG for the pump and heater, but I've got to plan an intake solution whether it's just allowing water to flow over the top of the BG and behind to the heater & pump or some kind of screened cutouts under "rock" outcroppings.
I don't want to plan the floor plumbing layout until the structure of the background is set. I'm considering using foam on the tank bottom (must keep that in mind for BG height!) to support some rocks and if I cut the bottom foam with a margin around the sides I can get a nice deep sand look without as much gas buildup. If I do this I'm worried about my Malawi's moving enough sand around to show the blue foam, any experience with this?
Adding foam to the bottom offers the opportunity of sinking my jet plumbing into the foam, but I've not nailed the logistics of this down yet and I do not want pvc to bear the weight of a rock and become a stress point on the glass. I do want to use cement to disguise the jet heads as rock.
BG Appearance:
So, foam details are smoothed over by the cement and color is covered by algae. I'll use some buff pigment for shading even if it only gives me a neat first picture. If I ever have to sell the tank it may help. For details I'm drawing on the multitude of artistic souls who have written their name or left a handprint on a sidewalk. On the third and/or fourth coating of cement I'm thinking of trying to press a real rock with coarse details into the cement to get a reverse impression, but I have no idea if I could do this immediately after the coat is applied or if it needs to set up some first. I will be keeping the cement moist for curing throughout.
It's a bit of a long post, but I hope something in it is original and sparks some responses. Thanks for any help you can provide.
I'll be working with insulating foam sheets and Quickcrete Quickwall for the background and pvc for the jets. I have a spare 55g tank to use for the layout, prep, construction, and curing. I'm using a modified Peng. 330 HOB for filtration plus whatever mech. filtration having foam around the UGJ pump intake provides. Here are some of my interests and concerns that I haven't found enough information on:
Caves:
I plan to incorporate multiple caves into the background and I did read about Satin Macy's BG in the Library, but not a lot of attention was paid to the caves in words or images. Are there reasons outside of waste build up and the difficulty of catching fish not to incorporate caves? I've seen many of the BG projects, but caves as part of the BG seem rare which is odd considering the amount of mass available within the foam. I know there is an issue getting cement to stick in caves so I'm considering inserting various sizes of abs pipe sections into the foam. This should negate the need to coat the walls and I'll angle all the caves a bit to allow waste to fall out as fish enter and leave. I can use concrete to customize the openings and blend edges with the foam so I don't end up with a BG full of perfectly circular and obvious holes.
Sidewalls:
I've seen how building the background around to include the sidewalls can really add to the 3D effect, but that creates an issue with viewing the tank sides since I don't want a nice tank from the front with foam visible from the sides. Do you just paint the sides black and too bad if subtracts from the tank's overall look? I could build the sides from the back towards the front of the tank and angle the walls away from the sides as I get closer to the front of the tank so that I could get cement coated on the foam closest to the tank sides (I wouldn't keep the outside edges of the BG flat in this case), but then I end up with dead spots for waste unless I don't allow the sidewalls to reach sand level.
Tank Bottom & UGJs:
I'll be getting a Mag pump rated at around 700gph to push 3-4 jets. I'll leave cutouts behind the BG for the pump and heater, but I've got to plan an intake solution whether it's just allowing water to flow over the top of the BG and behind to the heater & pump or some kind of screened cutouts under "rock" outcroppings.
I don't want to plan the floor plumbing layout until the structure of the background is set. I'm considering using foam on the tank bottom (must keep that in mind for BG height!) to support some rocks and if I cut the bottom foam with a margin around the sides I can get a nice deep sand look without as much gas buildup. If I do this I'm worried about my Malawi's moving enough sand around to show the blue foam, any experience with this?
Adding foam to the bottom offers the opportunity of sinking my jet plumbing into the foam, but I've not nailed the logistics of this down yet and I do not want pvc to bear the weight of a rock and become a stress point on the glass. I do want to use cement to disguise the jet heads as rock.
BG Appearance:
So, foam details are smoothed over by the cement and color is covered by algae. I'll use some buff pigment for shading even if it only gives me a neat first picture. If I ever have to sell the tank it may help. For details I'm drawing on the multitude of artistic souls who have written their name or left a handprint on a sidewalk. On the third and/or fourth coating of cement I'm thinking of trying to press a real rock with coarse details into the cement to get a reverse impression, but I have no idea if I could do this immediately after the coat is applied or if it needs to set up some first. I will be keeping the cement moist for curing throughout.
It's a bit of a long post, but I hope something in it is original and sparks some responses. Thanks for any help you can provide.