First Construction - Start to Finish

[froggsong]

psssst..... Nath, where'd you go? I didn't scare you off, did I?

[Grimm]

Originally Posted by grius

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

Do you not have fluorescent lighting in Sweden? I couldnt find any "egg crate" either....That is until I learnt the "non-vivarium-forum" name for it. They are called light diffusers and they are used in ceiling mounted light fixtures to reduce the amount of glare people receive from the tubes. Hopefully that helps!

[grius]

Originally Posted by Grimm

Do you not have fluorescent lighting in Sweden? I couldnt find any "egg crate" either....That is until I learnt the "non-vivarium-forum" name for it. They are called light diffusers and they are used in ceiling mounted light fixtures to reduce the amount of glare people receive from the tubes. Hopefully that helps!

Hi Grimm.

Yes we have that lucky enough hehe, and my friend do actullay work as an electrician. Wy havent i thought about this before?! i shall talk to him later and se if he have some light diffusers over from work.

Wery helpfull information!

[froggsong]

actually, eggcrate isn't the "vivarium-forum-name" for it, lol... It says eggcrate right on the label... They are called eggcrate louvers here in the US, and while they are light diffusers, that only gets you the section where they're kept, at least here.

But all that is just semantics, lol...

What happened to the OP, I wonder????

[cin_cindi]

Any updated pictures of your false bottom / stream bed? I'm really interested in how it's all coming together.

[Nath5]

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't posted any pictures in a while. I started my internship two weeks ago and have been extremely busy. However, I have made some good progress and the pictures will hopefully be up within the next 30 minutes. I am still waiting on my habacrete to come in. I emailed the company and they assured me that they would re-send it for free so hopefully that will arrive soon and I can start using it on the back wall. As always I am happy to answer any questions and look forward to hearing your comments.

[Nath5]

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

The below four pictures are of the stream bed covered in GreatStuff (GREAT STUFF? Pond & Stone). One thing I learned is that it expands way more than you might think. I did a trial run first on some left over Egg Crate and observed how much the foam expanded. However, when I applied it to the actual stream it seems like it faked me out on the test and expanded much more. I may need to cut some of it back to widen the stream a bit. Please let me know if any of you have cut it before, or have ideas on how to cut it while maintaining a natural look.











This picture is just me playing around with cutting the foam for the back wall. I wanted to experiment with different ways of cutting it before I moved on to the actual wall. I highly suggest anyone trying this method does the same.



Now for the real wall:

The first thing I did was to draw a general idea of how I wanted the top of the block to look in sharpie on the foam. I then traced out the general shape of the waterfall as it ran down the face of the block. I decided to tapper the waterfall so that it was widest at the top and gradually became more narrow as it reached the bottom. I also made sure that the waterfall started deep in the foam and slanted gentle outward as it went down to ensure that the water would run down the wall and not simply fly off. I cut the water fall out in small two inch pieces and then went back in to shape the edges and add more detail. One thing to be careful of is when you start cutting at the top where there is the least distance between the back of the water fall and the back of the foam is that you do not cut all the way through the foam. I almost did on several occasions bu got lucky.




















This is what I have so far. It takes a lot of time so be prepared to work on it over the course of several days. Also, if you are using a hot knife or other tool which melts through the foam make sure you are working in a place with good ventilation.

Let me know what you all think, and any questions you might have.

P.S. Sorry for the sideways pictures, photobucket is acting strange and although my pictures show up correctly there, they are sideways here.

[beckdg]

i say use a knife to cut the one or two really restrictive areas in your stream and put a small dab of g/s on them to cover them. the stream doesn't look bad at all.

your pics look fine from here too.

good start. i see you're taking a page out of rudereefers book. inspiring his builds are.

[Nath5]

Originally Posted by beckdg

i say use a knife to cut the one or two really restrictive areas in your stream and put a small dab of g/s on them to cover them. the stream doesn't look bad at all.

your pics look fine from here too.

good start. i see you're taking a page out of rudereefers book. inspiring his builds are.

I will try that. And yes after seeing rudereefers post about fake rocks I was inspired to try this instead of using the default back which came with the tank. His tanks are amazing looking.

Thanks for the feedback,
Nathan

[Nath5]

So my HabaCreet finally came in and I am going to be trying to coat the foam in it hopefully sometime this week. Has anyone used it before and if so what is the best ration of cement to water for coating foam.

Thanks,
Nathan