How cool is this!

I think Wayne should do that on his big tank :).....Also Brian & Moriah where are your pics? Your project sounds very interesting
 
We're going to try and do the resin/crushed coral part today. We should be finished by this evening (assuming all goes well) and we'll get some pictures up then...
 
I'd love to see a foamed out tank after 2-3 years. I've seen countless new builds...but nothing ever with some age on it. I've used the same foam outside my house around the air conditioner. Within 1 year it was extremely deteriorated by the sun/weather.

Can anyone point us to a thread where there is some real age on this stuff?

Maybe I'm just being wierd! :P
 
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Ryan- I can understand that concern and I haven't seen any really old pictures of it either. However, I doubt that anything more than little chunks would come off of it as it deteriorated and I don't think they wouldn't have any real effect on the health of anything in the tank. Besides, the exposure you're talking about is part of the reason that most people put epoxy or fiberglass resin with sand/crushed coral over the foam (hardens it and protects it from UV). I think that combo makes it pretty unlikely you'd have a large amount of wear.

In principle though, I'd say you are right, this is pretty new and that is why we're only starting off with a piece to cover the overflow.
 
Wayne -- let's shoot for Saturday then. If any one else tries this out in the interim, you can be the expert that shows us how to do it at the meeting.

I need to make some LR pillars and stuff for my new Red Sea Max nano, so this thread and meeting is timely :D

Jack
 
I was planning on posting pics yesterday (or the day before... can't remember) of this project. However, the "epoxy" on the foam part took a bit longer than expected. This is because the fiberglass resin we used did not cure nearly as fast on the rocks and foam as it did on the brush. I'm not really sure why that happened, but it seems that wherever we applied it relatively thin, it did not cure quickly. So, we did a second coat and put it on the foam thicker. This seemed to help and it looks pretty good right now. Being relatively careless as far as where we applied the sand helped it stick to the rocks in a few places and helps it look natural. Also, it is relatively difficult to get the sand/crushed coral to stick to the fiberglass resin "against gravity." So, we have another coat to apply to get the places that were upside down the way we had the rocks sitting before. We'll take these as lessons for next time. I think it looks really good though and, especially if you did an entire tank this way, you'd never think it was anything other than a rock wall. Pics to follow as soon as we finish (hopefully tomorrow).
 
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