I'm about to tackle my first attempt at a DIY 3D background, as well as my first attempt at creating a sandfall. My co-worker has a 20H freshwater tank at his desk right behind me, and since I upgraded to my 40B reef tank at my desk he has been talking about going bigger with his freshwater tank, so finally I had heard enough talk and told him that if he bought a new light for it I would buy the tank and get it set up to do a planted tank and cycle it at home before bringing it in to upgrade his tank for him.
So Saturday I went to PetCO and picked up a 40B thanks to the $1 a gallon sale going on... Saturday night I took the tank out to the garage and spray painted the back black since he really liked the look of my tank with the black background. Sunday I took it back inside and added some water and food to let it start cycling. Last night I dumped in some potting soil to let it start soaking up water, the plan is to have potting soil capped with gravel and I will cap that with sand (which will eventually work it's way down in to the gravel and potting soil, but this combination has yielded excellent results for me in the past for planted tanks, so I'm going to do it again!)
Then last night I was thinking about what we were going to do with the tank and I remembered seeing sandfall videos on youtube. I had wanted to try one, but haven't set up a freshwater tank since I learned about them, so this morning I showed a couple videos to another co-worker and he's adamant that I have to do a sandfall now. So here I am... putting my plans together...
First, I will need to remove the water / potting soil that I added to the tank last night in order to have a clean slate to work with. I'm going to leave it soaking in a bucket so it's good and water logged by the time I get ready to put it back in the tank (and maybe the cycle will begin in the bucket to help speed it up, but I'm not too worried about the cycle because if I need to I'll just steal one of his dirty filters to cycle the tank once the background and sandfall are ready).
Second, I am going to attempt a DIY background using styrofoam, concrete, and maybe a combination of gravel / sand / rocks to give it a nice waterfall/cliff look to the background, and will possibly have little areas along the rock that I can put more dirt/sand/gravel to grow some plants along the wall. I have never attempted anything like this before, but the youtube videos I've watched make me feel like it shouldn't be too difficult. I just happen to have a bunch of styrofoam right now because I'm working on insulating my chicken coop, so will save all of the scraps to use for the DIY background.
Third, as part of the background will be to incorporate the sandfall. I start out thinking one sandfall in just one corner, but I'm thinking I might do the entire back wall of the tank with the DIY background, so I think I might do a sandfall on both sides of the tank then have the HOB filter be positioned near the middle of the tank (top of tank will be covered with eggcrate, so will be easy to accommodate placing the filter wherever I want it).
Fourth, although this will probably happen in an earlier step, I think I am going to remove the black spray paint that I already painted the tank and spray it blue instead, as part of the back wall of the tank will be visible through the background, so going with blue will simulate the sky in the background better than the black.
I think this will probably be one of the coolest/funnest aquarium projects I've attempted before, so hopefully it turns out well. If anyone has done anything like this or has any ideas I'd love to have you tag along with me! I'll upload pics as soon as the darn forum is fixed to allow them uploaded again!
So Saturday I went to PetCO and picked up a 40B thanks to the $1 a gallon sale going on... Saturday night I took the tank out to the garage and spray painted the back black since he really liked the look of my tank with the black background. Sunday I took it back inside and added some water and food to let it start cycling. Last night I dumped in some potting soil to let it start soaking up water, the plan is to have potting soil capped with gravel and I will cap that with sand (which will eventually work it's way down in to the gravel and potting soil, but this combination has yielded excellent results for me in the past for planted tanks, so I'm going to do it again!)
Then last night I was thinking about what we were going to do with the tank and I remembered seeing sandfall videos on youtube. I had wanted to try one, but haven't set up a freshwater tank since I learned about them, so this morning I showed a couple videos to another co-worker and he's adamant that I have to do a sandfall now. So here I am... putting my plans together...
First, I will need to remove the water / potting soil that I added to the tank last night in order to have a clean slate to work with. I'm going to leave it soaking in a bucket so it's good and water logged by the time I get ready to put it back in the tank (and maybe the cycle will begin in the bucket to help speed it up, but I'm not too worried about the cycle because if I need to I'll just steal one of his dirty filters to cycle the tank once the background and sandfall are ready).
Second, I am going to attempt a DIY background using styrofoam, concrete, and maybe a combination of gravel / sand / rocks to give it a nice waterfall/cliff look to the background, and will possibly have little areas along the rock that I can put more dirt/sand/gravel to grow some plants along the wall. I have never attempted anything like this before, but the youtube videos I've watched make me feel like it shouldn't be too difficult. I just happen to have a bunch of styrofoam right now because I'm working on insulating my chicken coop, so will save all of the scraps to use for the DIY background.
Third, as part of the background will be to incorporate the sandfall. I start out thinking one sandfall in just one corner, but I'm thinking I might do the entire back wall of the tank with the DIY background, so I think I might do a sandfall on both sides of the tank then have the HOB filter be positioned near the middle of the tank (top of tank will be covered with eggcrate, so will be easy to accommodate placing the filter wherever I want it).
Fourth, although this will probably happen in an earlier step, I think I am going to remove the black spray paint that I already painted the tank and spray it blue instead, as part of the back wall of the tank will be visible through the background, so going with blue will simulate the sky in the background better than the black.
I think this will probably be one of the coolest/funnest aquarium projects I've attempted before, so hopefully it turns out well. If anyone has done anything like this or has any ideas I'd love to have you tag along with me! I'll upload pics as soon as the darn forum is fixed to allow them uploaded again!
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