Foam stuff for the "rock work" look????

tgreene:
I personally from experience think that your project was not doomed to failure, it was an experiement and it didn't work quite like you'd hoped; but you did have a d@mn nice go at it. I would have tried cutting out the center portion and rebuilding it.

It's worth trying again if you have the motivation. Try applying the foam in several passes. Starting from the inside out and giving it several days to harden and cure before beginning the cement coating. Your nobby areas off to the sides were very nice and you could easily do those again without much risk of repeating your mistakes.

For the 40g tank, I actually built mine outside of the tank first on a piece of foil placed on the smooth kitchen floor. Then I cut and shaped it before placing it in the tank itself. The cement adheres to the glass fairly well which is what actually anchors my foam into the tank. After curing for over two weeks now it is incredibly firm but it has yet another crack to fill.

This thread is incredibly long, most people here do not read the entirety or always grasp atleast the entirety of the posts. Ignore those who don't and respond to the responses who are reasonable.
 
I'm sure I will try it again in due time, but not on this particular tank.

My other tank is a 80bf that is all scratched up on the front and left side, so it may actually be a great candidate for this. My thoughts would be to redesign the stand and canopy, then simply turn the tank around and foam up the front to hide the scratches. Once my new system is up and running, the 80 will undergo a major sump renovation and be converted to an aggressive tank, at which time I'll consider any other options.
 
I used this up one corner of my tank to hide a closed loop. I covered it with sand and let it cure for a couple days. I am so happy how it looks.

Carl
 
I'm going to set up a tank pretty soon, and am planning on using this method. I have an overflow in the middle, and I'm thinking that I can either form acrylic to go around that, or cut and glue eggcrate around it. Any thoughts?
 
Lots of people have put the foam right on there overflows (they all looked like AGA overflows which are plastic right?). Is that something you dont want to do?

Carl,
Can you post pictures?
 
It bonds very well to acrylic, but you can definitely remove it if the need arises. It doesn't form like a chemical bond, just an adhesive one. :)

Peace,
John H.
 
Is this basically the same as insta-foam??

I seen at something fishy the other week something cool they did to one of their reef tank setups right next to the overflow to fill the gap.

It looked similar but wasn't the foam stuff. It looked like they made some kind of form and used clear epoxy or something and mixed shells and gravel and like i said it was on the back glass next to the overflow.

It looked really cool but i don't know how they did it.
 
heh fibreglass wall?
sure if you have the money. You could probably make 10 of the foam backdrops for the price of one fibreglass one.
Plus you can always reshape until you get it the way you want.


btw, I bought something similar to this foam stuff from the Beckett company that makes pond stuff. The can actually says "fish safe" right on it. And its for outdoor use and it says the product is "environmentally and UV stabilized". Its 8 bucks (canadian) per can of it and it's not as foamy as the regular "Great Stuff" product. It's also black coloured and so you don't have to worry about a the barf-yellow color like greatstuff heh.

I've had my product in my tank for over 3 years and coraline/GSP/Xenia has completely encrusted it so its not really soft and foamy now, but i wouldn't worry about it degrading in the tank.
 
Pics pics pics, please!
Sounds cool! I always wondered why not use that stuff when I saw it in Aquatic Ecosystems catalogue.
 
thefedz said:
You could probably make 10 of the foam backdrops for the price of one fibreglass one.
Click to expand...
Polyester resin and glass cloth are dirt cheap, unless you are getting into high performance weaves. I'd be more concerned about the offgassing with polyester. Epoxy resins are much more benign during and after the curing process than fiberglass products. With enough time, I think both are fairly comparable, although epoxy is less brittle and more flexible.
 
Looky looky what I found. Seems to be the same stuff as Great Stuff right?

<img src="http://feltandmeckelcorals.com/foambottle.JPG">
<img src="http://feltandmeckelcorals.com/canlabel.JPG">
 
Ok I went on Hilti's website and it looks like this stuff polymerizes in water :( Try again! Interesting note...it reacts with phosphates and CO2 also...

I still might try it and see how it does. Any ideas guys before I open the can?
 
But it says its insoluble in water.....eh....Well as long as it resolidifies as it polymerizes in an equillibrium reaction it probably won't decay quickly...
 
Hmmm...

So I went and found Great Stuff's data sheets and apparently what I found is exactly the same stuff.

But much more interestingly guys...
It says it REACTS WITH WATER AND BASES! It forms carbon dioxide. It can't be a fast reaction but I think its something we should think carefully about while we are still poking around with this idea (less than 100 ppl we know of with reefs and great stuff foam). So apparently this stuff is not as fixed as we thought. It is slightly volatile according to its maker. I'm gonna go build me a backdrop now with my Hilti foam:D

O and btw i found it at Home Depot if any1 is interested.
 
gatehoser

when they say it reacts with water. they mean when its wet and still curing. You can speed up the curing process by spraying water on the still damp foam. it'll cure a lot faster

once it's dry/cured it doens't react with water anymore. or else we wouldn't be able to use it for anything that it was designed to be used for

and i believe there are way more then 100 people who use the foam stuff in tanks =)

People in europe have been using this stuff for easily 10 years
 
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