Sorry for the delay in updating. The bottom and the background were "folded" for shipping, and took a few days in the sun mid-week to flatten out the creases. I spent most of today working on the install. Here is where I wound up by the time my old body had enough crawling around inside the tank...
The bottom is completely siliconed around the edges and bottom and is essentially finished. The background is more or less all siliconed, but I will go around the edges on the sides and bottom tomorrow, and blend the background and base with some colored substrate (sand/crushed rocks) provided by Universal Rocks. I had it in my mind that behind the background would be completely sealed off from the rest of the tank. The background and base, however, have numerous pinholes from the manufacturing process so I realized that wasn't going to happen. It's probably for the best anyways, as I would have had to foam in all behind the background for it to have stood up to the water pressure if it was dry back there. I'll take a picture of the back of the tank tomorrow so people can see how I siliconed it in. It's not rocket science...use lots. Once its all finished, I plan on having black vinyl applied on the back of the tank so I don't have to see it anyways. I'll also have to use some pond foam in a couple of areas like at the lower intake on the left overflow box. As you can see in the bottom picture, there is a huge gap between the box and the background. I'm not sure if it would affect the lower intake or make a mess behind the background, but I don't plan to find out. One thing I've learned thus far. You have to go with the flow with a project of this magnitude. Even though the background was custom made for the tank, it still took a lot of test fitting (I think the background was in and out of the tank five times) before I was finally comfortable to lay down close to six tubes of silicone and press the background into place. And it's still far from perfect, but it's as close as my son and I were able to get it.
Tomorrow, I hope to finished the background and mock up the rocks and trees to finalize a placement for everything else. Cheers.
The bottom is completely siliconed around the edges and bottom and is essentially finished. The background is more or less all siliconed, but I will go around the edges on the sides and bottom tomorrow, and blend the background and base with some colored substrate (sand/crushed rocks) provided by Universal Rocks. I had it in my mind that behind the background would be completely sealed off from the rest of the tank. The background and base, however, have numerous pinholes from the manufacturing process so I realized that wasn't going to happen. It's probably for the best anyways, as I would have had to foam in all behind the background for it to have stood up to the water pressure if it was dry back there. I'll take a picture of the back of the tank tomorrow so people can see how I siliconed it in. It's not rocket science...use lots. Once its all finished, I plan on having black vinyl applied on the back of the tank so I don't have to see it anyways. I'll also have to use some pond foam in a couple of areas like at the lower intake on the left overflow box. As you can see in the bottom picture, there is a huge gap between the box and the background. I'm not sure if it would affect the lower intake or make a mess behind the background, but I don't plan to find out. One thing I've learned thus far. You have to go with the flow with a project of this magnitude. Even though the background was custom made for the tank, it still took a lot of test fitting (I think the background was in and out of the tank five times) before I was finally comfortable to lay down close to six tubes of silicone and press the background into place. And it's still far from perfect, but it's as close as my son and I were able to get it.
Tomorrow, I hope to finished the background and mock up the rocks and trees to finalize a placement for everything else. Cheers.
