First Construction - Start to Finish

[beckdg]

it can be painted.

[Maverick]

I wouldn't paint it man, I've tried to cover this topic before. If your any kind of artist, more than likely you wont like the look of painted foam. You'll get much better results you can really appreciate if you cover it with mortar than paint the mortar. If you MUST paint the foam, your going to have to rough up the surface pretty well. The cured foam that is shiny on the outside will not accept the paint thickness you'll be trying for. You want to water down your paint quite a bit.

[beckdg]

i agree....

[Nath5]

That was my original plan, glad to hear I had the right idea. I also found out today that cutting the foam is a lot tougher than I had imagined.

[Maverick]

Yeah, it's more of a sculpting project than you imagined huh?

[Nath5]

Originally Posted by Maverick

Yeah, it's more of a sculpting project than you imagined huh?

Most definitely, its a lot tougher than I thought, thought a knife would cut through easy but I was wrong.

[froggsong]

Originally Posted by Maverick

I wouldn't paint it man, I've tried to cover this topic before. If your any kind of artist, more than likely you wont like the look of painted foam. You'll get much better results you can really appreciate if you cover it with mortar than paint the mortar. If you MUST paint the foam, your going to have to rough up the surface pretty well. The cured foam that is shiny on the outside will not accept the paint thickness you'll be trying for. You want to water down your paint quite a bit.

I don't agree with this at all (except that you'll have to roughen the foam to paint it)... Especially that "if you're any kind of artist" comment... I believe you can achieve WONDERFUL results by painting the foam. It is EASY to roughen the foam enough for it to accept paint without ruining your structure, even in places you don't want to actually carve it. I do it with drywall sandpaper. I LOVE my BG in my palu, and I didn't go to great lengths to paint it because I was planning to cover most of it in plants/moss. I haven't done it yet, but I still love the way it looks and it creates a wonderful surface for bacterial growth for filtration under water. Most people aren't as impressed with some of my tanks because I don't really care about how they look on the outside, but once you ignore that part and look at the inside of this one, the BG is really very nice, and I just used spray paint, a dry brush, and sand.

I'm not saying that crete won't look nice, but that you shouldn't toss the idea of painting offhand. I'll go grab a pic of my BG and edit in the link just so you can see how nice it can look with absolutely minimum effort (I'm planning another BG to work on this week and will probably paint it as well, with alot more effort because I won't be using live plants in with the snake). I think that this is a viable method that is easy, fast, and can look absolutely wonderful. It's not for every application, but shouldn't be just tossed aside.

Now Maverick, please don't take offense. I'm not trying to bust on you or anything, I just really really think that people should consider this as an option that can look great, if you put in a little effort. You can potentially go from bare cured foam to adding animals overnight. Time isn't always an issue, but when it is, this can be one of the best choices. I'm generally working on tanks without having anything but extremely temporary housing available for the occupants (I shuffle them around alot, trying to get them into better size cages), so coming up with safe, fast ways to complete a project is always my goal. Sometimes though, I stumble upon things that I will definitely use in the future when I have more time to spend, choosing a faster technique over a slower one because I liked the results so much.

Anyway, enough rambling (it's 5 AM and I've not slept much, so I'm a bit tired, lol)...

To the OP, I would definitely at least try your hand at painting the foam in the stream bed to see if you can get a natural look that you love that won't take up extra space like layering crete will. If you don't like how it turns out, you wasted a couple hours and can still cover it with crete anyway.

If you need tips/instructions on prepping the foam for paint and/or painting it, just let me know (shoot me a PM so I don't miss the thread, my hubby just got back from deployment so I'm not online alot ATM). One thing to add, if you decide to paint the foam (or if any of it will remain exposed that has the skin removed if you DO cover in crete), make sure to let it cure THOROUGHLY, then set it in your sink or bathtub and let water run down your stream for a while to flush any residue out of the foam. It's better to do this outside of the tank so you don't get a film that will stick to everything and just float away when water lifts it off of surfaces. It can cause bubbling and a big PITA... Most of the expanding foams are petroleum based, so flushing it is the best idea when water will be running over it once the skin has been broken.

[Maverick]

Your good Froggsong, No worries!
I agree 100%, I personally just didn't like the way my foam painting experiments turned out. Spray paint sounds pretty interesting. What kind of paint did you use?
I will also have to 2nd that time issue. I spent months on mine, simply because I'm to much of a perfectionist I guess. :P
The artist bit was simply because I tend to think everything I do could be done better.. I'm certain its a plague!

[froggsong]

I'm glad you didn't take offense. Perfectionism is certainly a plague among artists, lol... And in this hobby, we're all artists!

I used the Krylon Fusion spray paint as a base (black, in my case), then used one of the stone look paints and dry brushed it in to blend it (those stone look paints rarely actually look like stone, lol), I used a grey scheme one, and a little bit of a brown scheme one. I sprinkled on a coat of sand (I used what I had, white sand, but I would use a different color in the future, like grey, for a better color), then brushed that out so it wasn't caked on, but mostly in the crevices (I did it for a better surface for the lizards to grip, didn't want it to be too rough!). Here's a pic, so I don't have to search down the thread and neither do you guys!:


Too bad I don't have a newer pic actually uploaded ATM, it looks much better than that now with more plants.

Anyway, I'll hush for now so we don't pull the thread off topic. If you'd like to discuss the technique further, we can start a new thread.

[grius]

Wy dont we have have Egg Crate here in sweden: / it is pretty hard to construct a false bottom without that.