Thedoctor
Fishaholic
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2010
- Messages
- 484
- Reaction score
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Hello,
This was my tank.
This is far from the best it has looked, but is what it had become. As you can imagine, I was not pleased with this look and so decided a background was and general re-scape was needed.
I'm a student, so I'm not going to pay silly money for something to stick at the back of the tank in the hope that it pretties it up a little. So I toddled off to B&Q for a bag of slate Chippings. The bag was several times bigger and half the price than I was expecting, so straight away im off to a flyer.
The backing plastic was a little more hard to come by. Originally I had planned to use polystyrene but had trouble sourcing it. My dad eventually came up with a variety of plastics he had lying around, so I chose a sheet of clear acrylic plastic.
The next hurdle was getting the size right of the acrylic backing...never estimate and once measured, measure again...and then twice more for poops & giggles and hassle saving.
After much faffing about I decided to cut two rectangular pieces slightly smaller than needed (So's to comfortable fit in thanks to an annoying hood-support bar cutting the tank in half).
After washing the plastic I covered it in blobs of marine-suitable silicon and began hand picking and placing the washed slate chippings onto the plastic backing. Didn't take too long in all honest, and I gave a second layer of slate to add depth and cover any gaps.
I ended up with this:
Which became this:
Which, just now, became this:
I'm very pleased with the results, not bad for my first attempt at any DIY tank decorating. And at the cost of £5-odd and a few hours (excluding 24-hour dry time) creativity, I'd say it's much better value then forking out £40 for a backing large enough for my tank.
Obviously, the tank isn't finished as far as decorating and stocking (unfortunately the fish that previously occupied the tank were killed by a malfunctioning heater whilst in the holding tank, a plec and eel being the only survivors) goes but I've made a massive stride towards that show lovely show tank i've wanted since I started fish keeping a year or 2 ago.
This was my tank.
This is far from the best it has looked, but is what it had become. As you can imagine, I was not pleased with this look and so decided a background was and general re-scape was needed.
I'm a student, so I'm not going to pay silly money for something to stick at the back of the tank in the hope that it pretties it up a little. So I toddled off to B&Q for a bag of slate Chippings. The bag was several times bigger and half the price than I was expecting, so straight away im off to a flyer.
The backing plastic was a little more hard to come by. Originally I had planned to use polystyrene but had trouble sourcing it. My dad eventually came up with a variety of plastics he had lying around, so I chose a sheet of clear acrylic plastic.
The next hurdle was getting the size right of the acrylic backing...never estimate and once measured, measure again...and then twice more for poops & giggles and hassle saving.
After much faffing about I decided to cut two rectangular pieces slightly smaller than needed (So's to comfortable fit in thanks to an annoying hood-support bar cutting the tank in half).
After washing the plastic I covered it in blobs of marine-suitable silicon and began hand picking and placing the washed slate chippings onto the plastic backing. Didn't take too long in all honest, and I gave a second layer of slate to add depth and cover any gaps.
I ended up with this:
Which became this:
Which, just now, became this:
I'm very pleased with the results, not bad for my first attempt at any DIY tank decorating. And at the cost of £5-odd and a few hours (excluding 24-hour dry time) creativity, I'd say it's much better value then forking out £40 for a backing large enough for my tank.
Obviously, the tank isn't finished as far as decorating and stocking (unfortunately the fish that previously occupied the tank were killed by a malfunctioning heater whilst in the holding tank, a plec and eel being the only survivors) goes but I've made a massive stride towards that show lovely show tank i've wanted since I started fish keeping a year or 2 ago.
I went with Polystyrene in the end, but does look extremely effective. 
