sillygoose
New member
Here's a bit of a cautionary tale - although probably no one else will try this fool @$$ thing.
So you get yourself a great new-to-you aquarium but you want a foam back. Simple right? Just lay it on its side, silicone in some egg crate, use the waterfall foam.
Except this tank had a bunch of expensive PVC plumbing already installed. It is installed in such a way that a bunch would have to be sacrificed to get the tank off of its stand. (In fact, this 180g tank rode, on its stand, all the way from Sierra Vista in the back of a pickup truck.) So the tank couldn't really be turned on its side. If the foam is put on a vertical surface, it drips down in most unsightly ways. What to do?
I had this great idea to build panels that could be siliconed in place once they were foamed. I attached egg crate to those light diffusers for fluorescent lights. I made little ledges and shelves to put corals on etc.
Then I foamed the panels. And it was good.
Over the next week or so, my great panels started to warp and the back of the panels became uneven. I didn't know how I would attach them to the back of the aquarium. What happened is that the foam worked its way under the egg crate in places where there was no silicone and caused the diffuser panels to bulge in places. All of this after about $70 worth of foam - so I didn't want to start over if possible. :headwally:
So this weekend, we peeled and broke the diffusers off of the panels and took a grinding wheel to clean the black foam off of the backs to expose the egg crate. That was fun! Now new diffusers (with a bunch of silicone) are on the backs of the foam panels weighted with cinder blocks. We laid the panels on bubble wrap to try to preserve the ledges/texture etc. Hopefully in a few days, I'll have nice flat panels.
So what did we learn on the show tonight? Well I have one more small panel with a portion built out to hide some plumbing. When I siliconed the the egg crate onto the plastic, I made sure to put a squirt into every square so that when the foam goes on, it will not be able to lift the egg crate.
For anyone who has read this far, I'll let you know how it all works out.
So you get yourself a great new-to-you aquarium but you want a foam back. Simple right? Just lay it on its side, silicone in some egg crate, use the waterfall foam.
Except this tank had a bunch of expensive PVC plumbing already installed. It is installed in such a way that a bunch would have to be sacrificed to get the tank off of its stand. (In fact, this 180g tank rode, on its stand, all the way from Sierra Vista in the back of a pickup truck.) So the tank couldn't really be turned on its side. If the foam is put on a vertical surface, it drips down in most unsightly ways. What to do?
I had this great idea to build panels that could be siliconed in place once they were foamed. I attached egg crate to those light diffusers for fluorescent lights. I made little ledges and shelves to put corals on etc.
Then I foamed the panels. And it was good.
Over the next week or so, my great panels started to warp and the back of the panels became uneven. I didn't know how I would attach them to the back of the aquarium. What happened is that the foam worked its way under the egg crate in places where there was no silicone and caused the diffuser panels to bulge in places. All of this after about $70 worth of foam - so I didn't want to start over if possible. :headwally:
So this weekend, we peeled and broke the diffusers off of the panels and took a grinding wheel to clean the black foam off of the backs to expose the egg crate. That was fun! Now new diffusers (with a bunch of silicone) are on the backs of the foam panels weighted with cinder blocks. We laid the panels on bubble wrap to try to preserve the ledges/texture etc. Hopefully in a few days, I'll have nice flat panels.
So what did we learn on the show tonight? Well I have one more small panel with a portion built out to hide some plumbing. When I siliconed the the egg crate onto the plastic, I made sure to put a squirt into every square so that when the foam goes on, it will not be able to lift the egg crate.
For anyone who has read this far, I'll let you know how it all works out.
