Ideas for rear glass covering?

[Troll]

In the process of thinking thru designs for the rebuilding of my system and am trying to think thru aquascaping. I really dislike corraline and muck algae build up on the back and side walls of the tank (which are painted black) and also prefer not to have the "rock wall" looking tank where people have large rocks just against the back but nothing in the middle or front.

Cleaning the walls was my least favorite task with the old tank...it would normally take about 2 hours every couple of weeks to scrape with a razor.

Was brainstorming the thought of glueing or siliconing small pieces or sheets of cut live rock (maybe 1/2" thick and varied sized) and SPS (plating monti?) to the rear and side walls of the aquarium and wondered...thought this might really add a 3D feel to the tank

1) Ever hear of anyone doing this? Any pics?

2) Any reasons why this is a bad idea? Would the weight of the rock put too much pressure on the sides?

3) This wouldn't be the only rock, for I would have plenty of rock "towers" and caves in the display....but the backdrop would be a really thin wall of rock.....

4) Was thinking you could build some platforms and caves with this rock wall also for strategic coral positioning...

5) Anybody have any other clever designs for disguising the rear or side walls?

FYI - display is 60x30x30 in wall with only 1 front viewing pane.

Mitch

 

[2639]

You said 'towers' and that gave me a brilliant idea! I think my next aquascape may be made to resemble a cave with stalagmites

I have a ten gallon nano with 'Great Stuff' as the back drop and I've seen others that have done that and it looks spectacular.

I do not believe that putting rock on the back glass will be too much pressure. That would look great in my opinion!

When I get time tonight after I get home ( I'm SUPPOSED to be working! ), I'll try to find this one thread in particular that shows off the 'Great Stuff' trick.

FWIW, I have my rock in the dead center of my tank ( 65 G ) and all four walls are accesible with my glass cleaner. I HATE it when I get 'muck' all over the back wall. I designed mine this time to be very 'open' so I have no dead spots.

 

[Phoric]

I remember there being a thread a few months ago with a guy who was gluing live rock that he had cut in half to the back of his tank. It looked okay but he had issues with the weight of the rocks eventually overcoming the adhesive and falling off the back of the tank... Could potentially be harmful to corals placed on or underneath the hanging rocks.

I think a combination of suspending the rocks off the sand using clear acrylic rods and placing islands instead of the usual "wall of rock" would be cool thing to try.. plan on doing something like this myself with my next tank. I'm also a fan of using wide tanks with lots of depth and keeping a large portion of the sand bottom open in between rock islands and the tank walls.

 

[Troll]

i would think that if you kept the rock "thin" to maybe 1/4" generally and let the adhesive "cure" that it wouldn't be too heavy for the adhesive and would stay.....but then again, never have seen or tried this....just thinking conceptually.

 

[Troll]

Anybody else with any ideas

 

[2639]

I wonder what it would look like with the 'wall' up against the front side? Hmmm

just kidding.

 

[dc]

I thought these fake walls looked pretty cool. you could probably use your imagination and mak your own.

Found in the macna pictures thread.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=937372

 

[Troll]

"I wonder what it would look like with the 'wall' up against the front side? Hmmm

just kidding."


....It would make cleaning the front panel easy to clean also and make cleaning the other 3 sides a moot point.

It would also eliminate the bright lights from the Mhs that currently make it difficult to watch television due to the reflection.

Mitch

 

[Troll]

dc - thanks - I'll take a look

 

[2639]

Those fake walls are sweet! I will have to look into that more.

 

[derekman]

I bet if one were to start from scratch, you could get some small rubble pieces and use that polyethylene foam stuff to hold it on and blend in where no rock is covering. I read about using the foam to adhere full size rock to glass in an aquarium book by Nilsen, Reef Secrets. I suppose this isn't applicable because you already have a tank running (right?) but that way you'd get a functional (denitrifying), seamless "wall" without a lot of weight(being distributed by the foam) you'd probably need a lot of nano rubble, but I'm sure you could get it cheaper if you requested it specially, since I think most people like the big stuff. over time, the foam would be colonized by calcerous algae, montipora if you'd like, it would make quite an impressive display, I think...

 

[Troll]

Actually, my first tank bust (see Vendor Experiences Forum for the gory details) so I am awaiting Tank #2 as we speak....will be here in 4 weeks. I'll see if I can find the book somewhere local.

 

[rick s]

A friend in our club bought some "reef walls" from Captive Oceans. He likes them a lot. I saw them before he put them in his tank. They were very nice.

Here is a link to the thread. There are pics before and after he put them in his tank.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=808383

 

[IndyReefMan]

In Anthony Calfo's book: Coral Propogation, he describes techniques of aquascaping the back with acrylic tubes used to mount SPS frags.

 

[derekman]

correction that was polturethane foam, my bad...