Using travertine for substrate instead of none or sand.

[atcguy]

enough rock with coraline glass takes care of that pretty quick.. Just paint the back glass black..

[atcguy]

may look cool once coraline algae gets the tiles... Porous may lend a hand to bacteria buildup.. own a tile company , with free tiles is a good isea I guess.. Will be interested to see how it looks with time!!!

[motokorth]

Very interesting project, can't wait to see this tank with water and life in it =D.

Good luck!!!!!

[my2rotties]

That was the original plan, but there is a secondary layer of tinted glass silconed to the back. We had to cut the tank apart to move it out of the seller's basement. The we had to clean the panels and when we did, water seeped between the layers. You can see the evaporated water between the panel now (horrible when the oights are on), and it would be much to risky to try to cut off the tinted glass now. Plus it was awful to cut the glass apart when dismantling the tank, and we only has an inch to cut through. The back glass is seven feet wide and 30" tall. It would be a huge feat to get it apart back there. So... we decided to make a background for the inside instead.

Originally Posted by atcguy

enough rock with coraline glass takes care of that pretty quick.. Just paint the back glass black..

[my2rotties]

Me too!

Originally Posted by motokorth

Very interesting project, can't wait to see this tank with water and life in it =D.

Good luck!!!!!

[Diana]

It looks cool.... it would look really cool in my bathroom

I just cant help but smile with the thought if you could get some cyanobacteria leaching back out of the travertine! LOL, not really possible, but I guess life comes full circle?

-Diana

[my2rotties]

Funny you mention a bathroom, that's what it is from. I have it for my backsplash in this house when we started renovating. I LOVE the stuff, and went through great strides to NOT fill the holes in with grout on the splash. I like the holes and such in the natural stone. The last bathroom I did, I had to fill the holes in with grout which defeated the whole purpose of the look in my opinion.

Isn't cyanobacteria the thick red slimy stuff that I had to syphon off of my rocks the other day? I did do some research on it, know a bit about it, but darned it, now you are making me do more research since I am a newbie...

Great name BTW... I have the same one. Spelled just like the Princess... I always have to say it since people tend to add extra "n"s or do an "e" on the end. I introduce myself as "Diana" and still get called "Diane". Ten years into my marriage, my in laws got me a birthday cake with "Diane" on it... I had a chuckle about it, sort of.

Originally Posted by Diana

It looks cool.... it would look really cool in my bathroom

I just cant help but smile with the thought if you could get some cyanobacteria leaching back out of the travertine! LOL, not really possible, but I guess life comes full circle?

-Diana

[Diana]

Haha oh god, I dont even correct people anymore when they call me Diane. There's been people I've known practically all my life that call me that too, lol.

Yeah travertine is a pretty cool stone, its basically calcium carbonate that has precipitated out of the water and been turned into rock, and all sorts of microscopic bacteria and life gets trapped in it and gives it its color (such as cyanobacteria and spirulina and stuff). Not that it could ever come out of the rock after being fossilized, but its kind of neat having rock in the aquarium that contains the same bacteria from millions of years ago that you are keeping alive today.

Can't wait to see more pics.

[my2rotties]

Yeah I just don't bother correcting anymore, since after twenty minutes, they call me Diane again... I always say "like the Princess" since every knows her name correctly, and it is word association thing that I use to remember names of individuals...

It surprises me that travertine is used in showers (I should show you pictures of the last one we did, it is spectacular!!!), it is so porous. However the impregnators I use after it is installed get me higher then a kite. This is particularly bad since I am usually on a scaffold sealing the marble on the ten foot shower ceiling. I love working with natural stone, although it is horrible to grout and seal. There is nothing like it. When it is either wet or has the impregnator on it, the colours and minerals beam through.

Right now I am siliconing broken bits together into barrier walls to hold the substrate back. I am applying more silicone to myself then anything else at the moment. I feel like a kid again...

Originally Posted by Diana

Haha oh god, I dont even correct people anymore when they call me Diane. There's been people I've known practically all my life that call me that too, lol.

Yeah travertine is a pretty cool stone, its basically calcium carbonate that has precipitated out of the water and been turned into rock, and all sorts of microscopic bacteria and life gets trapped in it and gives it its color (such as cyanobacteria and spirulina and stuff). Not that it could ever come out of the rock after being fossilized, but its kind of neat having rock in the aquarium that contains the same bacteria from millions of years ago that you are keeping alive today.

Can't wait to see more pics.

[michika]

Originally Posted by fencer

Catherine are those the same tiles you are using to mount frags?

Yes they are.