Well lately I have been looking at a lot of background alternatives to styrofoam and grout/cement. One of them was clay backgrounds used by dart frog keepers, I really like these but they must be kept not too wet and not too dry. So what I am trying to do is find an alternative similar to this, so what I have come up with is this:
I took some old seam filler I had and did a 50/50 mix of peat and the filler, I also added some sand for color. the result was a clay like goop that was easily spread on the back of an old 5 gallon tank I had. So what I had then was a great looking background that actually looked like rock and had the texture and it is so far so good. Now I have just given it a heavy layer of polyurathane, the hopes of this is that the clay will suck it up and give it strength and also help it from water damage because that is the true goal here, to find a clay like background method that is not affected by humidity.
Now my main worries are if the polyurathane works and if the whole structure is too brittle. I will try to keep this updated with pictures.
Now I get to wait for the polyurathane to cure!
sorry for the dirty glass
I took some old seam filler I had and did a 50/50 mix of peat and the filler, I also added some sand for color. the result was a clay like goop that was easily spread on the back of an old 5 gallon tank I had. So what I had then was a great looking background that actually looked like rock and had the texture and it is so far so good. Now I have just given it a heavy layer of polyurathane, the hopes of this is that the clay will suck it up and give it strength and also help it from water damage because that is the true goal here, to find a clay like background method that is not affected by humidity.
Now my main worries are if the polyurathane works and if the whole structure is too brittle. I will try to keep this updated with pictures.
Now I get to wait for the polyurathane to cure!
sorry for the dirty glass
