Plywood tank build

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I would avoid the lavarock, I tried it out for my flowerpot project and it clogged and just got nasty and any miss step I was dumping nasty black water into the tank. Scrubbies are your best bet.

Backgrounds are very easy, I built 1 out of foam and concrete/grout and turned out fantastic. I did 2 layers of cheap concrete and then 2 layers of colored grout and looked better then anything I could pickup in the store.
 
Building the background has turned out to be a lot of fun so far. I looked at all the different options and crunched some numbers.

Seems that most people opt for the foam and cement way but it adds up to some serious bucks pretty fast. 40.00 for styrofoam, 10.00 couple tubes of silicone, 15.00 for some quickcrete, 40.00 for a quart of epoxy, plus color pigment, etc.

What I did was head out to the Refit Store where I got 4 sheets of eggcrate for .75 a piece. I used the left over pipe from the filters to make some caves and a handful of tie wraps to strap everything together.

Now that I have all the eggcrate cut and it's all tied together the next step will be to go get a few cans of Great Stuff foam and spray the whole thing.

background 001.jpg
 
I tried using greatstuff to make decor at one point. It works all right as long as you dont mind making a huge mess and a really lumpy looking background. Be sure to keep us posted on how you do it, I'm always looking for new diy decor ideas.
 
Yeah it looks nice for a reef set up, since coral is usually odd and lumpy anyway but I just wasn't satisfied with the look I would've had in a freshwater tank. Give it a shot it certainly wouldn't be hard to outdo me I gave up pretty quick.
 
nice build. were you trying to inspire me? you have so many ideas running through my head right now. ive been trying to come up with a kick ass entertainment stand tank idea and i think ive got it now.
 
Well if thats how you want your background to turn out, go for it. I personally would have done the styrofoam and concrete.
 
Personally when I saw the background I instantly though (before reading about the Greatstuff) That would be an AWSOME Moss wall... I'm not diggin the Great Stuff look... but if it was smoothed out abit It could look good, but my vote is some Java Moss on that bad boy and it would look kick ***
 
I went and picked up 3 16oz cans of Great Stuff this morning and started covering my eggcrate. I'm very happy so far with the results. It's going to take a lot more of it to cover the entire background than I first thought I figure about 4 more cnas to do the job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom