Foam Aquascaping?

[Black Phantom]

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:biggrin:

[albert_dao]

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]

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

[Scavenger]

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]

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.
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/1107tankfrontnew.jpg

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]

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]

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

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 :biggrin:

[muck]

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

[danny zubot]

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

[Black Phantom]

The floating thing is a good comment. Never thought about that.:biggrin:
I figure I'll silicone it to the back wall after everything is done. then after a day or two I can add the water.

[Cap'n]

Silicon is the way to go. You could even go so far as to build a frame (back, bottom, sides) out of pexi and do all your foamwork within. That way you can be sure of the dimensions, makes an easy job of glueing and you can competely seal off the foam from the water. Maybe even toss a couple rocks at the bottom of the foam stack before sculpting to give the silicon a hand.

I still think getting rid of all the foam after coating is the best solution but extruded foam is definitely an improvement over the expanding.

[Sushiman]

I used an eggcrate scaffold for the foam to adhere to instead of the glass itself. I placed a horizontal cross-piece along the bottom of this framing & attached via zip ties. This acts as an anchoring system for the aquascape as it is buried totally within the sandbed. Instead of the industrial foam, I used a black aquatic pond foam from a local nursery & I have to say I'm pleased thusfar. There's a pic of it in my gallery after it was initailly completed. I have coraline growing nicely & I've begun mounting encrusting frags. Nice bonus is easy mounting of powerheads. My MJ's & Seio's are happily wedged at any angle. Next step is redoing my LR display on a new PVC scaffold. I cant stand the "rock pile" look & it allows you to do more with less. The black foam fills gaps in this style as well so no ugle pvc is left exposed.

[jgoldsney]

I have done the back of my tank with the 'Great Stuff' expanding foam. What I did was make a base out of egg crate with some egg crate shelves zip tied to it to make ledges. I then sprayed the structure with foam. To get ridd of the "turd" look I dropped handfulls of sand and coral chunks on it while it was still wet. once it dried I sprayed it with multiple coats of Krylon Fusion black paint. It is now quite covered by coraline and you can hardly tell that it is not rock.

[Black Phantom]

Well it looks like I might not do this after all. Scavenger who posted here and built a foam wall seems to be losing his fish for some unknown reason.
I HATE LOSING FISH. :mad:
So I think I'll just build a nice back wall out of live rock. At least we all know that it works
Thanks everyone for your input.

[Black Phantom]

Sorry, it wasn't Scavenger it was JGoldsney:redface:

Anyway, thanks all

[Midknight]

Yes but he is 1 out of how many have done this in the past?
I think there might be something else or working with that to create a fish death zone.