Pics Of My 3d Background Project!

[Dave Legacy]

When I decided to upgrade my Mangrove Swamp Tank one of the things I wanted to try is a 3D Background. For those of you who aren't familiar with making these, Here's a good example w/ a DIY Article.

Here's a pic of mine in it's early stages:

I got away from the traditional rock background and decided to go with something that more closely resembled the enviornment my archers would probably inhabit, a mangrove swamp shoreline. I started out my searching the google images database and saving tons of pictures of mangrove trees. I found a few panoramic shots and tried to copy the root work but I found that to be a tad difficult. So what I did was I just kept comparing photos until I got a firm understanding on how "Red Mangrove" roots grow and created my own design from scratch.

When I was finished with my drawing I drew a grid on it and scaled it up to it's full size of 84"x24" onto a sheet of 1.5" thick polystyrene, which you can obtain at a local hardware store in the building material section. It's often used for insulation. I then cut out all the pieces that I wouldn't use with a Ka-Bar Folding Tactical Survival Knife(razor blades weren't long enough).

The result looked something like this:

I laid this piece out on the dining room table and attacked it for a few days with a dremel tool with several different kinds of sanding barrels. Finished it off with some sandpaper and now it's ready for concrete. The concrete will hopefully allow me to clean up the finish a bit. Right now I'm not 100% satisfied with the result, but I'm close.

Thanks for letting me share, I'll keep posting in this as the project advances.
Dave

 

[Dave Legacy]

I have worked with styrofoam before, it's not the easiest medium to "play" with. I'm looking at what you did and my first thought was..."My goodness, you must be a really, really, REALLY patient person!"

Looking gooooood!!!! Keep us all updated!

I've been working on it on and off for about 2 weeks. Planning actually took me about 1 week. Today I decided to just get the shaping done and that took me about 2-3 hours. I was covered it in dust... looked like a snowman. It still needs a lot of fine sanding and it seem that the 3ft section on the right side needs a lot of fine tuning.

I was going to try to hide the canister plumbing but decided against it. It was gonna be too much work and it was going to be too hard to service the parts with the plumbing behind the background. Thanks for the compliments, I'll add more updates this week.

 

[nmonks]

Outstanding! I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

By the way, if you haven't considered writing something for TFH or PFK on how you did this -- you should. This looks, to me, exactly the sort of thing they would publish and would be of interest to many readers keeping big tanks and big fish. I was looking at a website yesterday selling 3-D backgrounds, and their prices were fairly high. What they were selling looked great, but out of my budget, and I'd imagine that of many other aquarists.

http/www.3d-aquarium-backgrounds.co.uk/

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Dave Legacy]

I've never done any kind of professional writing before. However, I would be happy to write an article about my experience and send it to them to use if they are interested. At the very least I will write one that can be hosted somewhere on the internet to help other. Really this sort of thing has been done quite a bit and many articles have been written. This project is a little different because I went with a completely different style of background.

I'm going to be experimenting with it for a couple more weeks and when I'm done I'll put all my information into an article and decide what to do with it from there. I definetely want people to know that this isn't a difficult project as long as you are capable of envisioning the final product and taking time to go through each step without rushing. Which is no different than starting a tank.

Thanks for the compliments! Turns out I have to wait about 4 days to get the concrete so my project is on hold until the weekend. I think I'll probably try to smooth out the roots with a heat gun until it arrives. If anyone has any suggestions, now would be the time!

Outstanding! I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

By the way, if you haven't considered writing something for TFH or PFK on how you did this -- you should. This looks, to me, exactly the sort of thing they would publish and would be of interest to many readers keeping big tanks and big fish. I was looking at a website yesterday selling 3-D backgrounds, and their prices were fairly high. What they were selling looked great, but out of my budget, and I'd imagine that of many other aquarists.

http/www.3d-aquarium-backgrounds.co.uk/

Cheers,

Neale

 

[nmonks]

Dave,

Honestly, what you are doing is so unusual but also has such potential that I can't imagine that TFH, PFK, or whatever wouldn't be interested. Writing for magazines isn't especially difficult though there are some basic rules you need to follow. TFH, for example, have some useful writer's guidelines that might be of help. Assuming you're taking pictures of each step, you can sell those along with the article.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Dave Legacy]

Here's what the next step looks like:

That's 8 layers of 1.5" thick polystyrene ready to be coated with cement and then covered in a couple inches of sand bed. Initially when I started this land mass I wanted it to be completely covered in sand but I started playing with the idea of concreting it and coating it with a cement/sand mixture to try to get a hard packed sand embankment look. I'm still not 100% sure what I'll do yet. It's done like a pyramid in levels to hold the sand in place better, this way it will less likely all slide down to the bottom and leave exposed sections. However, if I concrete the whole thing it would be ok if parts were exposed.

Depending on what types of livestock you keep in the tank, it could be very important to concrete the base of your landmasses. For example, I was just reading that fiddler crabs will burrow into the styrofoam with great enjoyment and make it near impossible to get them out if you ever need to. A concrete top layer will keep this from happening. I'm planning to keep some mudskippers so I might cut some holes in the landmass and slide PVC piping w/capped ends into the holes so that I can pull the mudskipper out if I need to.

As of right now I have less surface area than I was planning for. This probably means I'll need to have fewer mudskippers, maybe just a pair of Indian Mudskippers since they're little guys. Maybe one of the less terrestrial species. Reguardless it's an intresting place to put a couple Red Mangrove Saplings.

My concrete arrives tomorrow. SikaTop Seal 107 used for waterproofing containers to hold drinking water. 48hrs to air cure and it's ready to go from there.

 

[nmonks]

Dave,

Does the concrete have any influence of water hardness and pH? Ordinary cement has lime in it, and that hardens the water. Not a problem for brackish I suppose, but not so good for other fishes. I'm assuming your choice of "SikaTop Seal 107" has some bearing on this.

Cheers,

Neale

My concrete arrives tomorrow. SikaTop Seal 107 used for waterproofing containers to hold drinking water. 48hrs to air cure and it's ready to go from there.

 

[Dave Legacy]

The potential is there to run into issues like that. However this isn't like regular concrete that you'd use on your driveway or to lay a brick wall. Most people use a product called Quickrete that does raise the PH and needs to be cured in salt water for 3 days before it's ready, and then it usually takes a few weeks before most of the stuff you don't want leeches out of the concrete.

Evidently SikaTop Seal 107 is different. It's used for waterproofing and specifically used for holding drinking water. It should add little to nothing to the water. Unlike some concretes the mixture is actually white which will make it easy to use it to paint color onto the background using concrete dye mixtures. I actually found out about this stuff from a thread a guy made on a Cichlid Forum. He found this stuff to be very successful.

Here's a few pics of my first coat:

Needs to air cure for 2-6hrs then it will be ready for the second coat. It already weighs about 2x what it did. I doubt it will have a negative effect on the buoyancy though.

Dave,

Does the concrete have any influence of water hardness and pH? Ordinary cement has lime in it, and that hardens the water. Not a problem for brackish I suppose, but not so good for other fishes. I'm assuming your choice of "SikaTop Seal 107" has some bearing on this.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[AMS]

Looks very nice! At first when I saw the "naked" styrofoam without the sealant/cement I thought it was headed for disaster espically in a brackish aquarium, then I saw you were using SikaTop Seal 107. It's a very creative idea and the sealant gives the background a nice brown color and actually resembles real mangroves. Good luck with it all!

 

[Dave Legacy]

Looks very nice! At first when I saw the "naked" styrofoam without the sealant/cement I thought it was headed for disaster espically in a brackish aquarium, then I saw you were using SikaTop Seal 107. It's a very creative idea and the sealant gives the background a nice brown color and actually resembles real mangroves. Good luck with it all!

AMS,

Thanks for the compliment. The brown color actually comes from a color additive that you have to stir into the liquid part of the mix. It's made by "Quikcrete" and is the color "Buff". I thought it might be a lighter color, and maybe it would have been if I hadn't used so much! It turned out a redish brown color sometimes seen in Red Mangrove Roots, so it's an acceptable color. I also bought "Brown" that I considered using on the roots from a couple inches above the water line down to the bottom to mimic that Muddy Tide Line look. Not sure about that yet though.

My only real complaints about this projects are:

1. It's unrealistic looking. Several layers of root structures would have been more realistic in terms of overlaying but not nearly as strong when buoyancy comes into play.

2. The SikaTop Seal 107 is rough like sand paper. I probably should have mixed it a little lighter so I'm afraid my archers are gonna mess themselves up on the surface when they jump for crickets. I'm currently experimenting with sanding it down to a smoother finish.

I should have an update in about 1 week. Muriatic Acid wouldn't remove calcium stains on the glass so I have a glass buffing kit on order that will be here next Tuesday... time to bust out the big guns. =)

 

[AMS]

What are your stock plans for this tank? How many gallons of water will you have? If you use Indian Dwarf mudskippers like you previously said there wont be much demand for land space, but be sure the species you are actually purchasing are Indians, as most mudskipper are mislabeled. Without too much land I suppose you could house some archers, but even in a tank that size Id be worried. But you look like you are well organized and will give you mudskippers and fish a happy and healthy home. I have a mangrove tank and I use this nice filter designed for turtles but work very well in all low water setups. Heres the filter link. And for extra bio filtration you can remove the carbon and replace it with extra bio max. Good luck Dave!

 

[Dave Legacy]

AMS,

This is an upgrade tank for my current 40g Breeder Mangrove Swamp that currently contains 4 True T. Jaculatrix measuring in at 2" in length and currently only one Uca Spp. I've kept my archers for 6 months and have run into mild aggression issues in the 40g and besides that it's too small for 4 adults. It was a quite simply a starter tank.

This new 200G I have calculated to hold anywhere between 75-135 gallons and will feature the 3D background, 10-15 Red Mangrove Saplings(that will be weeded out as they grow in size), an active tidal system that will raise and lower the water line by approx 6" every 6 hours, and LED Moonlighting on a Lunar Phase Controller(already in my 40g). Filteration will is being handled by two canister filters, a Fluval 403 & Marineland Magnum 350.

Stocklist is looking like...

6 Archerfish (Toxotes Jaculatrix)
1 Sole (B. Orientalis or T. Maculatus)
2-3 Mudskippers (P. Novemradiatus or P. Argentilneatus)
3 Monos (M. Argenteus)


I plan to focus on T. Jaculatrix as I have been up until this point. Mudskippers are just an experiment that I've been wanting to do but haven't had a large enough tank to allow enough room for them, even now I'm not sure I do. I also wonder if they're too small and will become food. The sole is pretty much a freeby since it doesn't take up any room, it's on the bottom all alone, and doesn't do anything. The mudskippers are semi-terrestrial so they wont be in the water much either. The fish in question at this time are the Monodactylus Argenteus since they are said to get at least 20cm in an aquarium, like high salinity, and prefer schools. However according to Frank Schafer's AquaLog Special: Brackish-Water Fishes the monos typically end up in pairs rather than schools and live well in brackish aquariums for a few years without any ill effects. I figured if I ran into problems I could donate them out to good homes if I felt I wouldn't be able to provide the appropriate future for them.

If you or anyone else has any advice or recommendations on how to improve this tank now is the time to speak up. All insights are welcome. I'm spending a lot of time, and surpisingly very little money, on this paludarium and would like it to be as pleasing as possible to myself and it's inhabitants.

What are your stock plans for this tank? How many gallons of water will you have? If you use Indian Dwarf mudskippers like you previously said there wont be much demand for land space, but be sure the species you are actually purchasing are Indians, as most mudskipper are mislabeled. Without too much land I suppose you could house some archers, but even in a tank that size Id be worried. But you look like you are well organized and will give you mudskippers and fish a happy and healthy home. I have a mangrove tank and I use this nice filter designed for turtles but work very well in all low water setups. Heres the filter link. And for extra bio filtration you can remove the carbon and replace it with extra bio max. Good luck Dave!