Another DIY 3D background in making

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Anonymous

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Hi All,

After having a lot of trouble with natural laterite rock structure for my tang tank, 3 weeks back I decided to start DIY background.

The main reasons to go for it over the earlier scape were
1. Lot of debris in the gaps, creating unhealthy environment
2. The WC and siphoning process was cumbersome
3. Too many hiding places made frontosa a little shy
4. Rock arrangement was risky as they were not fixed with silicone or any adhesive.
5. Scratches on the glass as the small rocks kept falling

OK, to start with; I removed all rocks and kept only a few at the bottom. This has made frontosa a little brave and I can see they coming for food. Not great improvement but a little.

Material Used
1. Thermocol sheets - one can get as thick sheet(s) as they want to
2. Fevicol
3. Silicone - for pasting the background to glass
4. Silicone gun
5. Construction grade cement
6. Painting brush 4" width
7. Old newspapers
8. Cutter
9. Cement paint (optional)

I had a lot of thermocol sheets lying with me as part of excess sheets to cover my discus tanks. Since I've left keeping discus, I thought to make use of these.
So, started with the front side with pasting the sheets with silicone - First mistake. As I had 1cm thick sheets and I had to make a background with depths and valley I was forced to put silicone only on the sides and cross from the corners to be cost effective. This has resulted sheets to come out when I started cutting.

This has taught me lesson and I used fevicol for pasting subsequent sheets. The fevicol was diluted in water to make it little easy for spreading it to cover whole sheet. The result was amazing after it dried out - as stiff as a plywood :)

The joints were pasted (again with fevicol with little pressure on the sides) to make it fit the tank's width. BTW, the drying of fevicol took a day. Picture below

After it dried, started with designing the rock sculpture.

And the same day (in fact it started in the evening and was doing it late in the night - around 1am), I started cutting it. Believe me, the cutting was so cumbersome as it creates a lot of mess. And since it was late in the night, I had to be maid to clean it ROFL

After the cutting part, a single coat of cement with brush was applied. The cement mix was watery to make sure to cover each and every corner of the scape. And a picture of the scape next morning.

As you can see the joints were still visible and they were still shaky/unstable when i tied to lift. In order to make joints more firm and to give them strength, I mixed cement with fevicol and water to put the mixture into the gaps. After 2 days, the joints were amazingly stiff. Then came the 2nd coat of cement. This time it was much thicker than the previous one. And then the next coat. Remember to have each coat thicker than the previous one.

The joints were not visible, thanks to the brilliant mixture of cement/fevicol/water. And of-course 2 coats with thick cement also made it look as one piece. The scape needed to be kept damp for at least 2 days before the next coat is applied. Since I missed a few sprinkling schedules, I started seeing some cracks on the scape. Then again I applied a little coat spread of thin cement/fevicol/water mixture. After the 3rd coat, the background started looking good.

That's my cousin holding the background. It was soothing to eyes, however I was not fully satisfied with the flat look of the rocks, I wanted to have them as natural as they can look with some uneven surfaces. Hence started with another mind-blowing idea of making use of old newspaper soaked in water to make it. Used a lot of newspapers soaked in water and applied some fevicol to have some binding and pasted them on the background.

Again, after 2 coats of cements on whole background, currently it is looking like this

It is still in drying/curing stage, where after that I will see if cement paint can be applied. I've got "Dark Gray" cement paint for this purpose.

Comments/Suggestions/Questions are welcome.

I will also keep this thread updated with progress on it.

Regards,
Adesh

Nice work......at the end of this please give us the idea of the total cost(range of it will be suffiecient) and time involved

newspaper will stay underwater??? though must say the work is super!!!

Excellent Adesh Thumb Up

Is it normal fevicol or marine one ? I am jus worried about newspaper rest is perfect and fine Thumbs Up

to create those cavities why didnt you use acetone? it would have taken seconds and no mess also:grin: also, you can use Bostik ( shoe's adhesive), thermocol wont absorb it either
but great effort good idea Thumb Up

Well try it and you will be suprised to see how acetone works on thermocol. Acetone will actually vanish thermocol into thin air in seconds, and this Bostik adhesive wii stick realy fast. its cheaper also. Anyways try it next time or may be others can use this Acetine-Bostik idea.

Very nice DIY. I loved it. I think this would be more cost effective than the commercially available 3D background. Pricing depends on the size of the thermocole you use. Based on the size, you will have to buy the required quantity of cement, fevicol, silicone glue etc..

Any update dude. Waiting to see in tank a final effect

You could have used a heat gun before getting the cement in place as this would have welded the weaker hanging thermacol properly also not sure of the idea of mixing paper using glue and cement. There Is high probability that if the paste is not applied properly water might seap in and slowly create more issues.

Also when using cement, the final product needs to be cured in water properly otherwise it shall alter the ph of the water column.

Good work on DIY
Wait for end result.... Very Happy

SIMPLY SUPERB!!!

Thanks guys for the comments and appreciation.

Well, I've put the assembly in the tank yesterday and filled in the tank today morning.

Sorry for the crappy image quality. Will keep you posted on the leaching. I'm planning to do daily WC for at least 1 week. Expert comments on if the frequency is good are welcome.