Gryphons DIY 3D background

Alright, decided to start my own thread for this so I'm not hijacking iandraco's thread again.

This is a practice run for getting the hang of things for when I go to do the background in my 120. This is for my 29 gal freshwater tank.

Materials: Styrofoam sheet (Piece I had gotten had a silver foil on one side, and white sticker on the other side. I removed both before working.)
Cement (10lb bag)
Acrylic Paint (I went this way cause it was cheap, and the paint will be sealed under the epoxy so there should be no concerns.)
Epoxy Resin ( [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] )

Started by measuring the inside of my tank, knocked an inch off side and top for fitting and filtration purposes, and cut my sheet to size. I used a knife and my fingers to carve the styrofoam out the way I wanted it to look and then used a lighter to seal the loose styrofoam and to give it a more natural look. I decided I wanted a ledge cave to it and some protruding spots, I used toothpicks to hold the pieces in position while the silicone was applied and curing.

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Second phase was applying the cement. My first batch of cement ended up being too watery so I had to add more making a bigger batch than originally planned. So the first (and only) coat of cement ended up thick, but I like the way it turned out. I had to apply the cement in phases so I could get full coverage around the cave ledge.

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So since today was sunny, I pulled it out onto the front porch to get some sunlight on it and help it cure. With all luck tomorrow I can start the painting and prep it for the epoxy resin. I'm planning on giving it a week to air cure before I install into my tank. As I now have the 30 hex I got the other day up and running, I'm going to go ahead and just silicone it into the back while my fish hang out in the hex tank. I'll update later when I get it painted and sealed.

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Today is painting day! I'll update with pics once we're done.

Also on a side note, I'm going to putting up another DIY thread probably this weekend on converting a defective light into a Cold Cathode light!

Looking good, cant wait to see the final product.

OMG this background is coming out awesome. My awesome wife is doing the painting and WOW! And thats just using brown, black, green and gray. We're picking up a few more colors either tonight or tomorrow to finish it up. I can't wait to show you all!

Still waiting.....
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Ok sorry for the wait, I was wanting to get a finished painting pic, but we didn't have the other colors we wanted, and FM and Kmart didn't have the paint needed. Wally world here I come!

Pictures are of different sections, I wanted to get close ups to show the detail. This background looks awesome, wish I had a better camera than my phone!

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total cost?

Lets see, pulling this mostly as web prices, may differ where you go

Styrofoam: $9 (gotta check this, website says $8 something, I think I paid less)
Cement: $2.06
Acrylic paint: Roughly $5-$6 (7-2 oz. colors, 1 16 oz.)
Brushes: $5
Silicone: $3
Parks Super Glaze: $24.98 (picking this up Friday.)

So estimated total of $50 give or take a couple bucks. My wife has the gift apparently when it comes to painting the background. Now she has ideas for ones she wants to do even if they don't go into a tank! Not to mention she threw out the idea of making some to sell. The background isn't quite finished yet, I'm picking up some red, yellow, blue and white paint tomorrow from wal-mart so the wife can add some flowers to the wall. Once the painting is done I still have to apply the epoxy resin.

Also as a side project to go along with this I am doing a similar add-on to my round airstone. I silicone'd styrofoam around it to form the base of what eventually (and hopefully, fingers crossed!) will come out as a stump.

Looks good!

Way cheaper than store bought.

what size tank is the background for? it seems to me like you might have been able to find one premade for the same price (your girl clearly has artistic abilities so i can see why youd go the home-made route tho) i personally lack that kinda talent so i just prebought mine lol. either way im loving how thats coming out.

This is going in my 29 gal. As for premade vs DIY build, some of the material I bought are good towards the next one I make. So that brings down the cost a bit.

Second advantage is I can design it to look how I want it, versus trying to find one I like in the store or online.

Looks good! Here are some ideas for your next one,two or three

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Oh I already have ideas lined up. A Volcanic background, a big Ohio State block O, World of Warcraft themed, Super Mario themed...I have more ideas than I have tanks to build them in!

Update! Getting ready to epoxy tomorrow tomorrow, wife finished painting, then accidentally broke one corner off so we had to silicone it back into place, and touch up the paint. The pictures do not do this background justice cause my phone sucks.

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Disaster has struck! I haven't had a chance last few days to do the epoxy, I was planning on doing it tomorrow. Good thing I hadn't done it yet, because my father-in-law accidentally knocked it off the table and broke it into 5 pieces!

We tried to silicone the pieces back together, should it not hold well enough Its back to square one again

Sorry to hear of the disaster.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. Better than it was before. Better...stronger...faster!

And for less than six million dollars? (Wow, Six Million Dollar Man reference really dates me!)

Ha I was wondering how many would catch that reference!

I used to have a Steve Austin (Bionic Man) action figure when I was growing up. Wow Im really old!

lol.. I was at Universal Studios when they had a bionic man show... along with the Hulk breaking through a foam brick wall. I remember seeing BJ & the Bear's big red semi truck on the lot.

Dude your old! Hey wait your my age...

I got the referance and im 17.

Disaster has struck yet again. Second background was done, I cured the concrete for a week, air cured the epoxy a week, and had it in the tank and with water for a week. I did two 80% changes, the second being last night before I added my fish. I woke up this morning to all ten neon dwarf rainbowfish and two snails dead. My striped Raphael was still alive, so I immediately pulled him out and have him floating in a bag in my 30 hex for the moment.

So frustrating! I don't know if it was something from the background that killed them, or the fact I had to adjust my heater (in-line) last night cause the tank was sitting at 72, I adjusted the heater to 78 before I went to sleep. I don't think it was the temp change, as it wasn't a huge difference. They had been in the tank at the most 10 hours, and they were moved in right after the 80% change.

If its the background, and its something I can't fix the tank is toast, there is no way in hell to remove the background back out without tearing the whole thing apart.

That is awful. I was hoping this would work out as I'm trying to convince the wife that we need to build one......guess I'll switch to working on buying a pre-made for the 8' tank coming in 2 weeks. I cannot afford to have a bunch of dead fronts in the morning. What is your best guess on a toxic agent? maybe get some cheap test subjects and see if there is a repeat of fatalities. most of your materials are in one or the other of my tanks but not in combination. Could it need a longer cure? is there any odors of and unusual nature? I hope you can nail down the causes, the background looks great.

Well yesterday afternoon i put in 2 15 cent goldfish from petco, they're still alive. So now it seems the cause is another factor other than the background itself.

I think I found the culprit, I checked the pH between the two, and found the tank I pulled the rainbows from was .8 lower than the 29 I moved them into. I did put in some water from the 29 into their bags when I moved them, but perhaps not enough?

I didn't even expect the pH to differ that much as they're both fill from the same water source, and with nothing that should be affecting the pH that much.

I hope you are on the right track.

I checked my tap water pH and the tank I pulled the fish from, same .8 difference. I'm trying to figure out now whats changing the pH in the other tank cause it has nothing in there that would drop the pH that much, unless the two pieces of a broken clay pot are affecting it.

So my current theory is the pH change was too drastic. I'm thinking that, combined with the stress of having to catch them and the lower than normal temperature was just too much. I didn't realize the heater was unplugged until i glanced behind the tank and saw the light wasn't on. I grabbed my digital thermometer off the hex and dropped it in and it said 72.1F which shouldn't have been too low for them.

On a side note, the goldfish are still alive. I'll try to get pictures taken tomorrow, apparently there were drip marks on the front that I didn't see because of the glossiness, but once it was in the tank they show up blatently

Well the background definitely has to be the problem, I didn't get the chance yesterday to do another 30% water changes as I have been doing daily, and I noticed a chemical smell coming from the water in the tank this morning. So I'm gonna take it down and give it another week of air drying/curing and see what we get then. This is gonna be a pain getting all the sand out and rinsed again.