Yeaulman
Fish Crazy
How do you color the cement? Paint, dye? Any pics of a done piece?
Rockwall background
- Thread starter Mogo
- Start date
abstract
Fish Herder
bump for a good idea 
Vivienne
Fish Fanatic
Hi Mogo,
Keep at it and don't get disheartened if you get to points where you think it's not looking so good. I finished doing the back and sides of my tank about three weeks ago like that. Fishless cycling the tank just now and haven't gotten around to posting the photos I took of the build yet. Getting the ph down while the concrete cures has taken a lot longer than I thought. It's really been worth the mess and effort, though there were times when I wanted to give up and start again. I found a hairdryer useless too !
I used a couple of coloured cement pigments - a black and a brown painted onto the concrete as a last step. Now, a couple of weeks on I think that was a waste of time because algae is already colonising the rocks and makes any of the original colouring unnecessary. (Pigments were expensive too and I have loads left !) I also used a mixture of snowcrete (white cement) as well as the portland so that the rocks weren't too dark.
No fish in the tank yet so I can't say how they'll like it, but just now the only thing I think I'd change with hindsight is that the background is very deep in places so it's reduced the water volume quite a lot. I just used all the polystyrene we had in boxes in the loft, left over from buying electrical goods - made for some interesting shapes !
Another mistake I made was covering the back and both sides. Now I want to add CO2 and I have nowhere to put a ladder or attach anything.
Keep at it and don't get disheartened if you get to points where you think it's not looking so good. I finished doing the back and sides of my tank about three weeks ago like that. Fishless cycling the tank just now and haven't gotten around to posting the photos I took of the build yet. Getting the ph down while the concrete cures has taken a lot longer than I thought. It's really been worth the mess and effort, though there were times when I wanted to give up and start again. I found a hairdryer useless too !
I used a couple of coloured cement pigments - a black and a brown painted onto the concrete as a last step. Now, a couple of weeks on I think that was a waste of time because algae is already colonising the rocks and makes any of the original colouring unnecessary. (Pigments were expensive too and I have loads left !) I also used a mixture of snowcrete (white cement) as well as the portland so that the rocks weren't too dark.
No fish in the tank yet so I can't say how they'll like it, but just now the only thing I think I'd change with hindsight is that the background is very deep in places so it's reduced the water volume quite a lot. I just used all the polystyrene we had in boxes in the loft, left over from buying electrical goods - made for some interesting shapes !
Another mistake I made was covering the back and both sides. Now I want to add CO2 and I have nowhere to put a ladder or attach anything.
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