Foam Aquascaping?

Black Phantom · #1 03-09-2007, 07:42 PM

Has anyone here ever tried it. I'm setting up another tank and thought I might give it a try. I've seen some pictures and it looks very cool.
Any help would be appreciated

albert_dao · #2 03-09-2007, 07:57 PM

I have, it was awesome, much like me. I have a tip for you though, paint it with some kinda epoxy after you set it.

Midknight · #3 03-09-2007, 08:05 PM

Joining on if you don't mind. Would be very interested in this.

Scavenger · #4 03-09-2007, 08:10 PM

I did a styrofoam backdrop for a freshwater amazon tank. Looked great, until the damn plecos started to graze on it. I was hesitant to do one on a reef tank for the same reason. Urchins and other harsh grazers could burrow into it pretty quick leaving ugly bare foam. I too am interested in hearing success or horror stories here.

danny zubot · #5 03-09-2007, 08:48 PM

Here's a pic of my buddies 90 gallon with a foam wall. Painted with 3-4 colors of marine paint to make it look coraline.

It worked great for a while, but started to break down and expose bare foam. My thoughts are to seal it with a water tight appoxy type marine coating after painting to solidify it. He never kept things like urchins so i don't know how it would have faired against them.

Cap'n · #6 03-10-2007, 03:23 AM

I work with the nasty stuff every day, always while wearing a respirator. No way I would put expanding foam in my tank. Off-gasses for days, breaks down when exposed to sunlight, tiny abrasive particles.... I suggest reading an MSDS before using it.

I would, however, build a background out of foam, coat it with epoxy, resin, etc., then REMOVE the foam before placing in water. Good place to hide equipment as well.

Black Phantom · #7 03-10-2007, 07:31 PM

The thought of having the spray foam break down is not a good thing.

What about sculpting something out of high density foam, like the pink stuff from Home Depot, and then covering it with a two part epoxy paint.
Do you think this would hold up to a salt enviroment.
I've had some of the pink stuff under my sump for five years now and so far it hasn't been affected from the salt water or the salt creep.
Do you think that would work?

Black Phantom · #8 03-11-2007, 04:43 PM

Ok Here's what I've come up with so far. I'm going to build the main structure out of pink rigid foam. (no offgassing, stable, that sort of thing) Then a coat of marine epoxy to seal the foam.
I"m then going to try mix a batch of clear epoxy with black sand. I'll cover the structure with this mix to give me a rock look.
First off, where can I get black sand or fine rock in Calgary
Second, does anyone see a reason for this not to work. I don't want to put in all this work to have it fail for one reason of another.
Or let me know if you have another idea that might work.
Thanx

muck · #9 03-12-2007, 02:58 PM

Might have a bit of fun trying to keep the foam background you make stay underwater..

danny zubot · #10 03-12-2007, 03:38 PM

The foam seeler basically is styro-foam after is cures. I have mislead everyone by saying that it breaks down because after talking to my friend this weekend he corrected me. The foam didn't break down, rather break off. I guess you need to be careful not to bump the wall when aquascaping the tank because it chips away at the paint exposing bare foam. It just started to look shabby after a while.

Danny