Styrofoam in tank

[Ogertron3000]

A while back I set my tank up with some long thin branches angled up from a rock pile and I think it looked pretty good.
After several months of water changes they have all moved and fallen down and it ruins the look.
My idea is to get a block of styrofoam and stick all the branches in that thinking it will hold them in place and then hide the block behind a pile of rocks.
Will this be safe or will the styrofoam leach chemicals into the water and potentially poison the fish?

 

[esoxlucius]

A while back I set my tank up with some long thin branches angled up from a rock pile and I think it looked pretty good.
After several months of water changes they have all moved and fallen down and it ruins the look.
My idea is to get a block of styrofoam and stick all the branches in that thinking it will hold them in place and then hide the block behind a pile of rocks.
Will this be safe or will the styrofoam leach chemicals into the water and potentially poison the fish?

The aquarium environment contains hell of a lot of plastics. I can think of 7 or 8 without even breaking sweat. All are safe. The only time there is a danger to fish where plastics are concerned is when the plastic has been in contact with some aquarium unfriendly substance in its previous life. That's why tubs and buckets and barrels are potential dangers. They could have had any old chemical in them.

Expanded Polystyrene, the type you plan on using, is just usually used as a packaging aid so shouldn't have been in contact with anything unsavoury. It is extremely buoyant. I'm not sure just wedging it somewhere may work long term, especially if you have fish that move decor about.

It's usually white too, how would that look from an aesthetics perspective, unless you planned on basically covering it completely?

 

[Milingu]

Depends on the fish. My Synodontis loved to shread styrofom into the smallest possible pieces. No harm to the fish but harm to my nerves from collecting the styrofoam from the water surface, the filter, the plants and so on for month.

 

[Ogertron3000]

The aquarium environment contains hell of a lot of plastics. I can think of 7 or 8 without even breaking sweat. All are safe. The only time there is a danger to fish where plastics are concerned is when the plastic has been in contact with some aquarium unfriendly substance in its previous life. That's why tubs and buckets and barrels are potential dangers. They could have had any old chemical in them.

Expanded Polystyrene, the type you plan on using, is just usually used as a packaging aid so shouldn't have been in contact with anything unsavoury. It is extremely buoyant. I'm not sure just wedging it somewhere may work long term, especially if you have fish that move decor about.

It's usually white too, how would that look from an aesthetics perspective, unless you planned on basically covering it completely?

I was thinking about using packaging foam, it was my daughters birthday and now i have tons of it from all her gifts. The idea is to get a decent sized chunk of it, poke all the branches into it and build a rock pile on top and around it, probably some will be visible but hopefully just if you peek through gaps in the rocks.
Its annoying with all the loose branches during a water change as they get knocked around and it never looks as good afterwards no matter how i rearrange them all. If they are stuck in foam im hoping they will all stay in position.

Depends on the fish. My Synodontis loved to shread styrofom into the smallest possible pieces. No harm to the fish but harm to my nerves from collecting the styrofoam from the water surface, the filter, the plants and so on for month.

I never thought of this to be honest. Something to keep in mind.

 

[jjohnwm]

I have used styrofoam "islands" in some tanks in the past, carving out the middle, planting grass and other plants in it, poking a few holes all the way through to allow water in and then floating them. Worked great...completely safe...looked like crap!

Styrofoam is just about the most buoyant thing I can think of, so trying to weight it down with rocks on the bottom of your tank seems counter-intuitive. Why not get some of that dark-green, rigid foam material that florists use to make arrangements of dried or cut flowers? Less visually obtrusive, probably way less buoyant once full of water, and it's intended for pretty much exactly what you want to do.

Or, better yet...get a can of Pond Foam. Squirt out a blob, let it dry, jam in your twigs and you're golden. It comes in black, so very inconspicuous. You could probably even embed a couple of rocks into the blob to make it stay in place on the bottom.

 

[deeda]

I don't suggest using florist foam as it is more brittle and many of them are biodegradable nowadays.

I like the Pond foam and rock suggestion though you might be 'locked' in to the initial design you choose.

 

[jjohnwm]

I don't suggest using florist foam as it is more brittle and many of them are biodegradable nowadays.

Thanks for the warning! I was actually planning on using it for something similar myself, would never have even considered that possibility...

 

[fishdance]

Why not set your wooden branches arrangement in cement? Mix in some colour, sand, pebbles etc for texture.

Or drill some soft rock or Hebel but getting exact alignment would be tricky.

It's going to be hard to anchor polystyrene securely. I've had big background blocks pull loose months later several times Once one bit smashed the glass crossbrace causing the whole tank to split so it was an expensive mess to clean up.