Plywood, PVC Board, Dryloc, Acrylic and Illinois winters

[CJH]

We are now going with foam sections which will be much easier to deal with in the tank 15' x 4'. My initial thought was to use Polygem, a fish-safe epoxy putty, which I already have. It would be a labor-intensive project to mix up putty for 15' x 4' and two 4' x 4' (slightly smaller dimensions than that) and apply it to the foam. When I came across Styrospray last week, it seemed like a really great solution. I came across it while doing an online search on DIY 3D backgrounds. I'm going to have to find the article and see what happened.

I'd love to see that article. Post it if you can. Or PM it to me if you can.

Polygem would be a lot of work. Maybe consider a combination of carved foam, sculpted polygem in areas where it works better for finer detail or whatever and then sprayed on Drylok, which can be applied with an inexpensive hopper gun. You could still do some acrylics with a clear coat if tinted Drylok doesn't give you the look you want.

Honestly I don't see Styrospray being a huge advantage to you. With its self leveling properties I think you'd lose a lot of the detail of your carved foam. But maybe I'm not understanding how you plan to use it.

Your tank is acrylic, correct? Have you tested to see what will stick to it sufficiently to hold the background in place? I know some people have used certain silicone caulks to temporarily fix minor leaks in acrylic tanks but the bouyancy of a 4' tall foam background is really going to test the bond.

I'm sure others have done it but I just haven't paid attention.

 

[pacu mom]

I'd love to see that article. Post it if you can. Or PM it to me if you can.

Polygem would be a lot of work. Maybe consider a combination of carved foam, sculpted polygem in areas where it works better for finer detail or whatever and then sprayed on Drylok, which can be applied with an inexpensive hopper gun. You could still do some acrylics with a clear coat if tinted Drylok doesn't give you the look you want.

Honestly I don't see Styrospray being a huge advantage to you. With its self leveling properties I think you'd lose a lot of the detail of your carved foam. But maybe I'm not understanding how you plan to use it.

Your tank is acrylic, correct? Have you tested to see what will stick to it sufficiently to hold the background in place? I know some people have used certain silicone caulks to temporarily fix minor leaks in acrylic tanks but the bouyancy of a 4' tall foam background is really going to test the bond.



I'm sure others have done it but I just haven't paid attention.

If I go with the Polygem, it will be quite heavy. Instead of 3D, it will be a painted background of basically trees. I may do some small 3D trees on the side backgrounds out of Pond Foam. Because of the unwieldy polyurea sheets, I had nixed doing small 3D trees. However, now that we are going with foam, I may do some trees. Our artist has assured us that she will do the trees in the background "trompe l'oeil" for a painted 3D effect.

Directly in front of the background are eleven 1 1/2" pipes disguised as trees of different sizes. I covered them up with wire, Pond Foam and Polygem. Here's one of the smaller diameter ones ready for the artist to paint. The polygem looks, feels like wood, and is heavy. If we use Polygem as the "canvas" for the artist, I don't think the foam pieces can go anywhere. They wouldn't be any different than other 3D backgrounds, possibly just heavier.

This picture is deceiving. The base of my "tree" is actually wider than the top

We are going for an underwater forest in an endless lake theme, and going in uncharted DIY waters. The tank was always going to be substrateless and undecorated. One can hardly call the plumbing "decoration". Instead of going totally bare floor, we will be installing a low profile 3D rocky background on the floor. The tank has black lamination on the back wall, and I had purchased black PVC pipes. If our background does not work out, we'll just go black on black. After our tank was almost framed in, we had second thoughts about black on black. We've wasted nine months conceptualizing what we want and having the artist sketch out what we want. We then had to deal with the polyurea sheets that got nixed 2 weeks ago. We like the idea of our background so much, that we were willing to compromise with foam to try and achieve it. BTY, the black showing behind the paper is the black lamination 4' behind the front panel.

 

[CJH]

Pacu Mom.

I had seen some of those pictures in your other thread I guess. I love it. Really nice to see something out of the outside of the box (so to speak) with a background.

Let me know if you find that article. I tried a bit on Google and couldn't find anything.

 

[pacu mom]

Can't find the article. I think perhaps it was this thread that I read in a different format during my search, and didn't realize it was an MFK thread. I just bookmarked Styrospray to check out later. They do have Speedliner which apparently is fish-safe and has been used in fish ponds/tanks. Since Styrospray does have a mold inhibitor which does not show up on their MSDS sheets, I guess I won't be using it. I've made too big of an investment already, and won't risk killing my fish. Guess I'm stuck with the labor-intensive Polygem epoxy putty. I have no interest in going the Drylok/Quickcete route, as I've read of too many failed DIY 3D backgrounds using these materials. Maybe I'll use my 2 gallons of Styrospray in the finish work of our building project. There's going to be lots of trim work, and I know the Styrospray can hide a multitude of small defects I'll find a use for it.....