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Foam Rock Wall

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evoIX

hey guys

well i've looked at almost everyones tale of the tank through the months and have some interesting aquascapes.

the majority of njreefers have not gone this route but a lot of users on reefcentral have. unfortunately their write ups are not extensive or you have to go through their 10000pages each.


question: what are the materials needed?

looks like:
live rock/dry rock
foam - great stuff (red can - saw it takes 1 hour to dry which is a good thing for more play and can add the sand to make it look more natural)
eggcrate

sounds like the foam must be EXTREMELY BOUYANT even with it seems several lbs of rock work to try to keep it down. any take on a good method to produce a nice rockwall?
 
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evoIX

do you know the name of the product by any chance? everytime i go to homedepot or lowes they have no clue wth i'm asking for.

i think what we call items in aquarium use and whatever use they use things for are completely different. no universal language when i go there asking for items.
 
D

ds4x4

try a pond shop.. and you are correct, Bulkheads are called thru hull fittings in boats. if you ask a plumber for a thru hull fitting he will have no clue what you are talking about :)
 
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evoIX

i have never seen a pond shop around my area but probably cause i've never looked for one! Thanks for the info though!!!
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

GREAT STUFF is the product name - it's mentioned by delbeek/sprung in the Reef Aquarium Vol 3 (great read - get it if you don't have it).

While you will not need as much LR (because of the foam background) - you will still need some to help seed the foam.

I honestly don't recall reading about floatation being an issue - though it's been a long time since I read about a tank build with foam.
 
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evoIX

thanks.

items used within post above:
1 can great stuff (red can)- $8 Home Depot or wal mart
30 lbs base rock- $2.99 a lb w/tax $100
5lb bag dry sand for rock wall -$ 9 Petsmart
1 bag zip ties - $6
1 can Bondo brand resin - $13 wal mart
1 sheet eggcrate - $12 Home Depot


i'll be doing a different element of the rock wall concept! i'll wait til final product which won't be for months for a model of my aquascape in my head!!!
 
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chaoscat

I looked into this last year when I was setting up my Cichlid tank, thinking about landscaping the back wall of the tank. In the end, I was unwilling to give up the water volume for it. (mainly I just chickened out)

Anyway, many of the textured walls I saw were not great foam, but styrofoam. You buy a couple sheets of inch thick styrofom, glue them together to make one very thick sheet and then you carve/burn the caves and features right into the surface. Once this is completed, the whole thing needs to be sealed and covered in some way. Some people use epoxy resins coated with sand, others actually coat them with cement. To keep these aquascapes from floating, they silicone the heck out of the backs of the styro. blocks and glue them to the back wall of the tank.

That was the part that gave me the heebee jeebies. What if I don't like it? What if it sucks? What if I want to sell off the tank? Man extracting that mess would be one LARGE PITA.

Still, it would have been really cool, sort of like a professional aquarium tank. Maybe next time
 
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evoIX

IMG_00581.jpg


outcome. i know it's not the greatest but i like it! i didn't use the resin and sand cause I'm LAZY! and it'll be covered in coraline. i love watching things GROW.
 
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NJ_ychung1

i thought the foam rock walls were for FW african cichlids. i have to ask the same question as above. does it hold up ok in salt? i'm sure it will only be decorative and won't really seed enough to provide good bioloical filtration. it's foam so i can't imagine any microscopic animals will burrow into it like they do with LR.

hmmm
 
onefish2fish

onefish2fish

the foam will still provide a suface for good bacteria and micro organisms.

my question is, is covering it in the epoxy with sand what "seals" it making it safer in aquarium use. ive heard of people using this stuff many times but every time they coat it.
 
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Bruce K

I recall seeing a German aquarist using uncovered foam on the tank bottom instead of sand. They had high flow so they didn't want the sand pushed around yet they didn't want the flat bare glass look. They might have sprinkled sand in, but I do not recall an expoxy coating. It did look better than bare glass, it looked like flat sandstone.
 
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evoIX

i've gone through all those threads and found a lot of users not coating it with no problems and having it up for YEARS. the foam should get covered in coraline like anything else in the tank. i don't see why it can't. after the foam cures it is said not too leak any chemicals into the water. and as such noone had bad remarks of using it within their tanks. there are TONS of people on RC threads and links above provided that show as such.

i will have to find out through trial and error from my own rock wall to let you know anything.
 
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Bruce K

We apply this type of foam to whole houses for insulation. It is very expensive, but an extremely efficent insulator. I do know that once it cures, there is absolutely no outgassing that occurs. But I cannot vouch for how safe it would be in an aquarium. I can only tell you that the article I saw on the German aquarist using it for the tank floor was about two years ago. I would presume that this much RC use for legthy periods speaks for itself.
 
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RobbiesReef

i hope you let i FULLY cure before you put it near the water! the stuff is extremely bad for the system prior to curing. the fumes are just as bad.
good luck
 
H

ham

i was in lowes the other day and saw that they have the black foam in the garden section i think it was around $12 a can
 
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evoIX

it's been curing for well over a week. i haven't even thought of when i'm going to actually start up my system again. i think all my corals are almost dead ;x might end up selling my system ;x
 
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