3D BACKGROUND Build--125 Gallon

[DMasker]

I can't believe it! ACWO, I really need to know what manufacturer made your 125. My 110 is styled exactly the same as your 125, but I have not a clue who made it. No label anywhere. My 110 has the same wide piece of glass for the center brace as yours and the same trim. I just am stumped. How coincidental is that. I'll have to take a picture and post. I'll need some guidance on pic posting though. Never done it on MFK before. Would you help me? I'll ttyl. It's 4:30 am my time and I'm tired. I'll check back with ya later. ~David

My 180 is also styled the exact same way. I know its older as well, however, I found a sticker on mine! It says Oceanic, I can also tell the sticker is quite old.

 

[Gravel Rock]

Nicer background!

 

[Muni]

Can't wait to see the update. They are hard at work on it now.

Too bad I'm a few hours away otherwise I'd come help.

 

[aclockworkorange]

Day 2

So today I picked JK47 up again and we got some more work done. This is what we had accomplished so far:

We still had one big piece to fit in what will be the right side of the tank. We had to cut down the 2" of height on the piece, as we hadn't done that yet.

The way we did this was take a tape measurer and measure two inches up the back of the background, and cut a small line with a knife as a cutting guide. The we took a saw to make the cut with the line as our guide. To his credit, JK47 cut this piece today, and it came out a precise two inches off... here is a pic of his laser precision:

We then fit in the last piece and threw down some silicone in the seam, made sure everything was fitting flush.

[/IMG]

Now it's just time to wait for that silicone to cure. At this point there is no silicone anywhere aside from the two seams. Have to let those cure good and tight before I can mess with putting silicone on the back and sides of the background to attach it to the tank itself.

 

[Muni]

Looks good. I really like the 3d backgrounds.

Some of them look amazing BUT some of them, i.e. the stump, take up a lot of the front to back depth of the tank.

Do you think this will be an issue with the species you'll be housing in there? The reason I ask is I'd like to get one of the backgrounds myself but the only tanks I have that I could do are my 55's which are a mere 12"s.

 

[JK47]

Looks good. I really like the 3d backgrounds.

Some of them look amazing BUT some of them, i.e. the stump, take up a lot of the front to back depth of the tank.

Do you think this will be an issue with the species you'll be housing in there? The reason I ask is I'd like to get one of the backgrounds myself but the only tanks I have that I could do are my 55's which are a mere 12"s.

Slimline BG's. < than 2"-3" front to back depth but your not going to hide any equipment behind it..

Day 2

So today I picked JK47 up again and we got some more work done. This is what we had accomplished so far:



We still had one big piece to fit in what will be the right side of the tank. We had to cut down the 2" of height on the piece, as we hadn't done that yet.

The way we did this was take a tape measurer and measure two inches up the back of the background, and cut a small line with a knife as a cutting guide. The we took a saw to make the cut with the line as our guide. To his credit, JK47 cut this piece today, and it came out a precise two inches off... here is a pic of his laser precision:



We then fit in the last piece and threw down some silicone in the seam, made sure everything was fitting flush.

[/IMG]

Now it's just time to wait for that silicone to cure. At this point there is no silicone anywhere aside from the two seams. Have to let those cure good and tight before I can mess with putting silicone on the back and sides of the background to attach it to the tank itself.

^^^ two days of work and it's back to exactly how it was outside the tank lol.. These interwebs makes us look unproductive..

 

[aclockworkorange]

Looks good. I really like the 3d backgrounds.

Some of them look amazing BUT some of them, i.e. the stump, take up a lot of the front to back depth of the tank.

Do you think this will be an issue with the species you'll be housing in there? The reason I ask is I'd like to get one of the backgrounds myself but the only tanks I have that I could do are my 55's which are a mere 12"s.

Yes, totally understand the concern... this was my concern when I did my 20 gallon long as it is the same depth as a 55. I got a "slimline" background from design by nature and it only comes out about an inch from the back at most. Most of their smaller cut backgrounds are slim, there are only a couple that are big and bulky like this river stump I'm installing. The slimeline was reallllllllllllllllllly easy to install too, took about 10 minutes because there's no brace in my tank, and the back its completely flat so there's no messing around with fitting it correctly.

 

[aclockworkorange]

Slimline BG's. < than 2"-3" front to back depth but your not going to hide any equipment behind it..



^^^ two days of work and it's back to exactly how it was outside the tank lol.. These interwebs makes us look unproductive..

Haha you beat me to it! Slimlines are awesome, that's what I'm installing on my new 90 gallon.

Thanks for the help today bro, we made it work! Can't wait to get water in this thing and start aquascaping.

 

[aclockworkorange]

This is just great - another thread to make me feel compelled to do a 3D background build...

It is looking really good so far, very smooth. It was nice of Justin to test/develop all these installation techniques for us. Make sure to keep us posted on any refinements you make along the way.

I was looking at that stump cavity and thinking that you might be able to fill it with bioballs or scrubbies for filtration. Would you call it "Stump Filtration" or a "Sump Stump"?

I'm curious about the intake for your canister. Are you going to plumb the intake hose through one of the holes? Or is the intake going to be behind the BG and water is going to flow into the space through the holes?

Thanks Dan! What size background were you looking for, for that one tank you mentioned? Might have an extra 30"lengthx24"height section after I do a couple more builds.

Don't know about the stump, I don't have a huge bioload, and I have an fx5 full of substrat pro, but who knows?

The water is going to flow through the space of the holes... we won't know how well it works until it's set up, but I'd like to avoid a huge gaping intake cut out of the background if I can. I have a koralia 1400gph powerhead to stir stuff up in the tank.

 

[JK47]

Haha you beat me to it! Slimlines are awesome, that's what I'm installing on my new 90 gallon.

Thanks for the help today bro, we made it work! Can't wait to get water in this thing and start aquascaping.

Yeah I have a slimline on my little tank too, they are nice. Anytime on the help bro.. Honestly that was a little harder to install than I thought it would be.