Ryanoh's 40 Gallon with Pictures!

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#21
I had a big re-carve on this last night because I panicked and thought there was too much styrofoam to ever work. I ended up taking like two of the sheets off the front which really destroyed a lot of the work I'd put into carving the thing.

I was going for some sort of South American temple effect rather than just river rocks, but I'm not sure how well that's going to pan out now. I'd gotten pretty far using this Mayan piece as inspiration, but I ended up ripping out the guy and I'm kind of just left with some nondescript looking shelfs right now, and I'm not really sure how to fix it. Any ideas?
 

HEADIN

Large Fish
Aug 9, 2010
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#22
Silicone?
Love the idea ur goin for ryan.
Keep at it.

Even if u make mistakes wi the carving, just modify it till it looks better.

Would love to have the time to try somthing like the background.

Nice big tank aswell so it will look well.
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#23
I've been using silicone to glue together five thinner sheet of styrofoam into one big block so I could cut on them. I wanted to just buy one block, but the sheets was all Lowes had so it'll have to work. Is there some better glue besides silicone that you'd recommend?

About the bigness of the tank, I'm really glad I found out last night that my 40 breeder, in reality, is more like a 45 breeder. I think 44.7 gallons is what it is, but I don't remember the exact number. I took the calculations for my block as if it were solid, and that would make me lose a little over 7 gallons, so I figured with as much as I've taken out of the foam I'll probably only be losing around 5, which put this at now being a true 40 gallon tank.
 

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HEADIN

Large Fish
Aug 9, 2010
178
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#24
Ive only used silicone in my tank that is made 4 aquariums when I make some tunnels and caves.

Extreme caution though seems to be the approach to make sure there are no chemicals in the glue that will seap out over time.

What about a few holes in the foam and maybe some clear cable ties? Loose enuf not to rip through the foam but enough to hold things in place?
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#25
I had to reseal my 55 gallon last year so I did a lot of research (though a bit of it too late) into what silicones are safe. There's Silicone II, which has an anti-mold chemical that will kill your fish, BUT, it is able to be leached out with frequent water changes and made safe. This is what I used to seal my 55, and though it killed a few fish before I knew what was going on, I housed my fish in it for about six months before selling it to a friend, and she still keeps fish in it no problem. There's also Silicone I, which has no harmful chemicals in it, and that's what I'm using now with this project. They had 'Aquarium Silicone' at my LFS, but it was twice the price for half the tube of what Lowes had.

Here's an update of the front of my foam.

I've shaved off an incredible amount of foam trying to get the buoyancy as low as I can before I cement it. I want to add some sort of decorative element in that open space on the left side, but I'm not sure what. I had a Mayan figure, but I ripped it off because I'm not the greatest at carving styrofoam and you couldn't really tell what it was anyways. When I cement it I plan to add some masonry lines and make it look like it was constructed out of bricks. I think I want to try and make some sort of circular sun design for the open space. What do you think?
 

Newman

Elite Fish
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
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Northern NJ
#26
I think you should really do a good job on the mayan figure and glue one back on. I think by taking that aspect off, your background looses literally half its meaning :( Plus I want to see it lol. The best themed backgrounds have a carved figure (for example the Buddha in one of the pictures in the forum banner, that thing literally makes the tank!)
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#27
I agree about the figure. I was thinking about making it out of clay or something rather than foam. I'm a decent clay sculptor, so that may turn out better than my carving did.

This is from my phone, the picture isn't that great, but here I am size testing it in the tank.

I like how much higher it made my substrate just by taking up that much more room in the back, and I'm VERY glad all my measurements were right and the things that need to fit behind/under it do.

As far as making the cement look like it's a brick wall, should the masonry lines be something I'm carving out now, or do you think I can draw or stamp them into the semi-wet concrete? I may do a test on a smaller piece of foam and find out.
I'd like to start cementing tomorrow afternoon, but I have a feeling it'll be Friday before I actually have time.

So about curing concrete... I've read there's two ways to make sure it doesn't dry to fast and crack. You can lay a wet towel over it, or you can spritz it with water once every six or so hours. I can't seem to find online anyone saying which method is better, so which is it from your guy's experience?
 

techmynd

Medium Fish
Sep 15, 2010
57
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#29
Beautiful. Lights are great. I am going to create CO2 like that. Nice aquarium placement. If i would use skull in aquarium, that aquarium would have Oscars, Peacock Bass and Sharks in it. Thumbs up.

O great! I commented late and looked at the first page images, the previous setup you had. Best of luck with the new setup. Should be interesting to see final thing.
 

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ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#30
So, for progress, I re-washed my sand today and put it back in the tank, so the underground jet system is now in place and working. I'm planning on soaking my driftwood in the tank during the next few days while I work on fixing the filter and then cycling the tank again. I'd post a picture, but it's really not that interesting looking.
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#32
It didn't. The foam fell apart while I had it in the tank to make sure it was the right size, and I just got tired of dealing with it. I'm going to put some slate tiles on a piece of egg crate and just go with that. It's not as decorative, but it won't be as much work either. :(
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
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#34


Here's my tank with rewashed sand, my 'fixed' light, and my new eggcrate background. The eggcrate is in there temporarily just to make sure it'll fit, and maybe this weekend I'll dry it out and glue some slate tiles to it. I still need to do another clean out of my filter, but its sounding better than it did. If I can't fix it there's still the option to send it in and get it fixed, which is what I'm going to do with my light since it's had another short-out episode, then snapped out of it again.
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
858
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#36
Today I installed my slate tile background and put everything back in my tank, sans fish. They're still hanging out in my 10 gallon hospital for a few more days.



I'm a little disappointed at how much egg crate you can see in the top right, but I guess I can live with it. I am, however, happy with how well I could hid my jet system and powerhead with rocks and plants. I'm not happy with my broken light, which will be mailed off to Marineland Monday, and that's why these pictures are so dark. I have the hood from my 10 gallon on now just to keep my plants alive, but its definitely not idea picture light.


My goal was to have as many "caves" around the tank as I could so when I get my GBRs they could pick a spot, and my other fish would have places to get out of the way. You can see a little bit of my pvc jet sticking out here, and you can see the poor, poor condition my sword plant is in...


For the first time in my life I'm using an airstone instead of a bubble-rod, and I wasn't really sure what to attach it to. I buried some of the hose and set my skull on top of it, and I think its working out. I eventually want to have CO2 coming out of this airstone once I change those out and get them producing again.


This is my tiny driftwood in the corner, and a weird reflection of me taking the picture. This is on the dark side of the tank where the hood doesn't reach, so that's probably why there's such a bad reflection.

I plan on getting some anacharis or java fern whenever I get my fixed light back. I'm leaning towards anacharis since everything other than my java moss (which I may toss) fits in the biotope, but I really like the way java fern looks. Are there any other easy to care for south/central American plants that resemble java fern that I could use instead?

I had the... rollers? biowheels? from my filter in my other tank so the bacteria wouldn't die, and I also had some of the decorations in there for the same reason. I moved everything back today, so hopefully I don't have to re-cycle the whole tank. It's been together and running for an hour or so now and I'm about to do a parameters test. How long would you guys wait to put fish back in it?
 

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ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
858
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#38
I may just get one more tile and drain the water down like two inches. That would be enough to dry out that one spot and glue more slate to it. I really should have got more tiles than I needed rather than the exact amount. Future reference for anyone, even if you score them a lot with a screwdriving, smashing slate in half isn't an exact science...
 

ryanoh

Large Fish
Mar 22, 2010
858
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#40
Yeah, I have it set up, just not running into the tank. I'm still playing with my 2 way valve. I also need to work out a new bubble counter. Does yours have one?