So i am building a top on addition to my aquarium which was up until now a vivarium. My plan is to fill the aquarium with water and have a waterfall and water feature on the upper part of the build. the aquarium is 1.2m x 60cm x 55cm and the top part has 1.2m x 60cm x 60cm.
The top part was build out of wood as visible in the pictures and is sealed with aquarium safe epoxi.
The lower part already had a background i plan to reuse so I tried to get a similar background on top of the vivarium. Do you have tips how to clean up the build and make it look more natural than currently? Also I wonder how I can change the colour of the background to get it to look more natural. I used aquarium safe scaping foam and natural rock and wood.
by Agile_Inspector_7403
5 Comments
What is this housing?
You have to start with cutting off all the shiny of the expanding foam. Or stuff won’t stick to it.
Find some youtube tutorials on backgrounds.
Make sure you create planting pockets.
The wood you are using is kinda underwhelming for the size of the enclosure. Go more 3d. Have branches stick out from the walls.
Are you doing the sides as well?
i have a similar build. started with 40 breeder and spray foamed three sides. it’s now a full on aquarium. I cut off all the shiny parts and covered it with black aquarium silicone and then covered it with a dried out ABG mix. My older builds i used dried coco fiber. I like the more textured look of the ABG.
A couple of things to note for the parts of spray foam that will be submerged or continually exposed to water: Eventually the coco fiber/ ABG mix comes off. This is why I used black silicone as to not see the gaps. I would use brown aquarium silicone if I had to do it over again (it’s worth the extra money). It’s really a small issue. The major issue i have is that the spray foam separates from the glass and creates corridors where fish and crickets get trapped.
I really like how you extended the build with the plywood box. I am going to try something similar. You should add more branches in the vertical space so that animals have more usable space. some nice pieces of driftwood in the canopy area would go along way. just remember that you still want to have enough light to penetrate to the water area for viewing and plant growth.
Hello I have a similar build.
One of my favorite technics is mixing clear or brown aquarium silicone with soil or sand to make fake stone / dirt.
This was taken from a Malaysian youtuber mugen woong who creates miniature landscapes. I recommend checking out his channel for build technics.
My concern would be the top rotting.