my lovey wife came up with a great idea. So we turned it into a family project. With my knowledge and instructions, Her desire to do it we can’t go wrong its a winning combo. with a few helping hands we found a tank, Joe aka stonoman donated us some Great filters, and some of the coolest drift wood I’ve seen and all types of other goodies for tanks! Thanks Joe!
**today was Day one of the build!**
what we got done will speak for it self, We took hose, rope, and all types of random tubes and blow foamed them onto 3 different pieces of sheet foam. Let it sit for a few, while we cleaned and prepped the back of the tank for a coat of black silicone. after both were dry we placed the 3 foam backings in the tank and blew some more foam to connect them all. after that layer of foam dried we coated it with silicone and covered it in peat moss to reveal its where its at now. Below are some pictures of it in progress. me my son and wife did it all.
i’ll make up dates to this as it becomes a live tank with plants, frogs or lizards of some sort, also it had a false bottom we made for it using egg crate and screening, it will be sitting about 2" over water there will be a small pond area that will be on the right side.
Hope you guys enjoy this stuff this is the first project my wife actually was involved with the labor of creating. she had loads of fun.
17’ Chris Craft
100hp 4 stroke
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a bo
Stonoman, the Gr8 Stuff is indeed fish safe. It’s been used for years on reef aquariums with sensitive corals. It’s just polyurethane foam.
This is a very cool project. I have a 24" cube reef with custom DIY LEDs, and a 36" tide pool tank with chinaback fiddlers for my son (it’s a new setup) also with custom LEDs.
Moral judgment under girds the entire structure of laws and is necessary for the rational structure of any significant statute. The idea that our laws can stand independent of moral foundation is senseless.----- Albert Mohler.
Nice! But how did you go from multi-colored foam to roots aged with alga?
sealevelPete
I don’t know just how they did it (and, they did a GREAT job) but the foam spray will hold sand quite well if you let it harden, and then smear on some fresh foam as a glue. Toss the dry sand into it before it hardens.
Moral judgment under girds the entire structure of laws and is necessary for the rational structure of any significant statute. The idea that our laws can stand independent of moral foundation is senseless.----- Albert Mohler.
Nice! But how did you go from multi-colored foam to roots aged with alga?
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what you do is smear silicone over the foam and tubing took me about 4/5 tubes brown,black, and clear (just scrap tubes i happen to have). Wile its still wet you put peat moss on it pack it down tightly and let it sit for 3-4 hrs min then brush the dirt off in my case into my wheel barrow,i also used a air compressor air adapter to blow out the tightly packed dirt around roots area. we are hoping to get it to look similar to this tank in the video linked below. we have live moss and Carnivorous plants to grow in it.
i know right! Thanks Joe! I’m excited to get are tank planted, working on the filtration system, and water fall today, ill take some pics of how i ran it and how to make a false bottom so its a little more clear how it works.
17’ Chris Craft
100hp 4 stroke
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
Thanks doubleN! So today we made a water fall, basically the same way as the the back but in stead of 100% peat moss we used 2/1 peat/non-shrinking grout mixture (dry). first we made the fountain out of sheet foam and some vinyl hoses and blow foamed it. Wile the foam was soft inside but hard out side we flattened it so it would keep the skin on the out side vs cutting it and making pores. then we added silicone to it, packed the grout/peat on it after about 3 hrs we vacuumed the excess off and misted it with water several times over a hr. also today we picked up some plants and started to get moss to take to a piece of drift wood. also did some touch ups to the moss today.
17’ Chris Craft
100hp 4 stroke
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
Looks awesome! If you had told me a professional tank builder did that, I would have believed you.
I sold all of my fish tanks when my son came along. Lately I’ve been thinking about getting another used one. I really miss having live fish in the house to stare at.
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
i believe my wife wants milk frogs, but other then that it will house carnivorous plants sundews and pitchers as the carnivores . here’s some we have growing. but not sure whats getting planted but we also got other plants and several types of live moss we gathered from the yard.
Frog she wants 3 or 4 of these guys.
carnivorous plants growing at the moment:
The Pitchers are just waking up.
17’ Chris Craft
100hp 4 stroke
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
Thanks! Hoof i like salt water fish but the i dislike cost and maintenance part of fish. these tanks are very low maintenance once there build. just trim plants feed criders and change filters from time to time.
we found this tank at goodwill. with a solid wood stand for 50 bucks. couldn’t pass it up.
17’ Chris Craft
100hp 4 stroke
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
Moral judgment under girds the entire structure of laws and is necessary for the rational structure of any significant statute. The idea that our laws can stand independent of moral foundation is senseless.----- Albert Mohler.
thanks Matt, was on that forum checking it out and ran a crossed this thread haha id ate some hehe. http://www.carolinafishtalk.com/forum/general-saltwater-discussion/71225-fried-kole-tang.html
I’m going to make a video eventually after i get her 100% done on the build and finished product and post the build on several other forums, i’m adding river rocks and doing a water test in about 3/4 hrs or so waiting on some silicone to dry at the moment we have moved the tank inside. and we have begun to prep the tank for planting and what not. very excited to get her planted. ill up load pictures after after i get her planted. wont be done till tomorrow evening at least o.O.
17’ Chris Craft
100hp 4 stroke
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
I really do not see any fish living in that tank unless you fill it several times and maybe get most of the toxins out.Marine silicone used for aquariums still requires you to fill the tank let it sit a day and drain and refill.I can not wait to see the tank live.it looks beautiful and natural.If you have a well and use that water you are lucky.
