29 Gallon Long PDF Build <My Sons Tank>

[DigitalPunk]

Ok,

With the RETF tank in my rear view mirror my 12 years old Son has decided he wants to learn some responsibility with pets and thinks Frogs is a great pet to start with. This build will be some what slow due to him funding this project from his weekly commissions My Wife and I pay him for doing chores and various other forms of Child Labor.

He picked up a 29 Gallon long aquarium from Petco during the $1 per Gallon sale. As stated in the title this will be for PDFs.


it was suggested I move my Terrarium projects to the basement and out of the Sun room lol. So I setup a makeshift work space for his tank and off we went.

He began by covering the inside of the tank with Wax Paper. He wants a waterfall/pond at one end of the enclosure. So the idea with the wx paper was to spray foam the waterfall into the tank and then be able to remove it so we can sculpt it some, paint it, and seal it. With copious amounts of testing and retesting.


I gave him a quick demo of how to hold and use the spray foam and off he went to build his waterfall.



After he was done I told him he built it up to high to fast and it would fall down some but we could let it dry and add more foam to the top.

I'll have to add more pics of this phase later. Since the last pic we let that first round cure for 2 days and then added a bit more on top to build it back up. We let that cure for 1 day and then removed the mound from the tank. He spent about an hour or so carving at it trying to find the shape he was looking for in that mound. I was sitting back supervising and drinking coffee. I was struggling with not sharing the new method I wanted to try with him and letting him try it in his tank. After he went to be last night I was looking over his waterfall and thinking about the rest of the build and decided I would share with him. So with the new method pending and pictures to come This waterfall and the days and days of work poured into it will end up in a trash bag as we move forward in a new direction.

I will post some pictures tonight along with describing the new method we will be experimenting with. So consider the rest of the day a Dramatic Pause

[Riptide]

You have peaked my interest sir. I will be following along.

[DigitalPunk]

Ok much like Christmas or Birthdays I suck at waiting. I went home for lunch and scrapped my son out from in front of his computer/PS4 and took him to the basement to show him what I had bought. Whatever it is that allows us to see the end result of a project in our brains before we even buy the first supplies he is missing. He can't visualize the end product at all lol. So we cut and measured and I did a rough layout to show him what I am thinking. I took a couple of pictures to share on here.

Nothing to exciting but not bad for a lunch break. I went to Hobby Lobby today and bought some Foam blocks and a Hot Wire foam cutter. The foam we are using for the base of the background is very think and the hot wire is not really designed for that so the cutting will be slow, but the general idea behind using the hot wire is for the detail work later and to keep the mess down while we shape the pieces. Here is the Hotwire. It is beside the tape measure.



Here is some of the foam I just stacked it in there to show my son what I was thinking. Not entirely sure how the layout will end up.


The general idea for this method is to Build up a base of the shape using the foam blocks. Once we are happy with a rough layout we will us a tiny bit of glue to hold it all together. We will then use the Hot Wire cutter to start to carve the foam to resemble rocks and get the detail of the formation in place. We will of course be doing all this work outside the tank so we will be test fitting it in the tank many many times through this process. Once the rock is sculpted the way we want we will begging the covering, painting, and sealing steps.

Oh and the foam pictured is the Green foam used for Silk flowers. I bought 1 sheet that is 2 inches Thick, 12 inches tall, and 32 Inches Long. I also bought some little foam bricks to help guid up the mound my sone wants for his waterfall side.

To cover the foam we will use "Foam Coat" from Hotwirefoamfactory. This will cover all sides of the background and water fall. We may also get some "Bounce" which when mixed with the foam coat will allow the hard coating to be a little resistant to impact shock and resist chipping more readily. We will be applying 3 coats of the Foam coat. Once the coating is completed we will use Acrylic paint and work to make the Foam background appear more realistic. We will then coat the whole thing in a water resistant coat... most likely Shields All., but not sure yet. I am open to suggestions on this.

We will continually test the water fall before we begin painting to ensure the water is flowing roughly the way we want it to.

Nothing is set in stone right now, no more cutting or shaping will happen till Wednesday when the Pump/Filter arrives and we can start working on the layout with the final pump in hand.

[deranged chipmunk]

Hmmmm..... floral foam in a dart tank? My mom was a florist for 50 years, so I have some experience with that stuff. Have you wet it yet? It turns to mush. Unless you seal it 100% (near impossible) it will most likely fail. I hope it doesn't, but odds are it will. Remember, you're talking about a dart tank here, extreme humidity. Water vapor gets every where, and I do mean EVERYWHERE!!! Do yourself a favor and test it beyond thoroughly before you assemble the tank. :-)

[DigitalPunk]

Oh we will be testing it. I have some regular small cell foam in case this goes poorly. The Foam Coat should cover it all 100% but we will be testing the **** pout of this before we call it a done deal and assemble it all

[deranged chipmunk]

Excellent. You're a better man than I. I know that stuff very well and I would never even consider using it lol

[Mentat]

Water has a strange way of getting anywhere and going were it pleases .

[DigitalPunk]

We spent a couple hours fighting with the green foam. 1. It is impossible to cut it with a hot wire foam cutter. 2 IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CUT GREEN FOAM WITH A HOT WIRE!!!!

Ok I got that out of my system. While we were cutting I had a small chunck of the foam submerged in water. I am not prepared to say Bill was right or not, but we did switch to the white foam I had as backup.

We started out with an 8" x 8" square brick. We built up the top of it to 11 3/4" and then began to carve at it. My Son did the vast majority of the carving with some tips and ideas from the cheap seat where I was sitting. After a couple hours staring at the block and willing a shape to jump out of it we ended up here. I don't think he is quite done with it. We will have to cut a sizable groove in the back for the pump/filter and then start working to make sure the water makes it close to where we hope it goes lol. Here is the waterfall/cliff thing we worked on most the evening.

Why so Serious!?

The end result. we were not ready to stop but I had to hold firm to School night bed times. :/

[deranged chipmunk]

Looks like a glacier's edge. That should turn out cool when it's complete!

[DigitalPunk]

I hope so lol We have a long long way to go before we know what the finished product will ultimately look like, but I like what he is doing so far

I am going to do something a bit different for mine. I will wait and explain it then, but it will be using Foam insulation sheets from Home Depot or Lowes.

[DigitalPunk]

Oh and our basement has been cool to do this in. We live in a house built in 1850 and the basement walls are stacked rocks and some just really big rocks for the foundation. Its like working in a cave lol.

The area we are in is heated and has a concrete floor. I am considering turning this whole space into a frog room, but we like having them up in the living room and dining room so we can see them.

[deranged chipmunk]

My fish/frog room in my old house was in an unfinished basement. It was awesome to have all that room. Now I am stuck in a tiny garage, so no room. I would have tanks all over the house, I just don't have room because this house is so small.

[DigitalPunk]

My fish/frog room in my old house was in an unfinished basement. It was awesome to have all that room. Now I am stuck in a tiny garage, so no room. I would have tanks all over the house, I just don't have room because this house is so small.

I guess my only concern is that you can't enjoy them as much if they are in a part of the house that is barely used. In the next 5 years or so we would like to expand the garage and add a couple more rooms to the house. I have asked for one of those rooms to be a big frog room lol, but the expansion is a pipe dream right now and may never happen.

[deranged chipmunk]

Lol. The garage for me is my man cave. I just turned it into livable space. So I get to enjoy them every night. still trying to talk the wife into letting me have a tarantula Viv on my nightstand. Nothing big, just a little 12x12x12 lol

[DigitalPunk]

LoL. My Wife would nix a spider in the bed room for sure, but If I tried to do a frog or something in there she would grab the checkbook and ask how much she needs to write the check for.

Well I think I have a new project to do. I mentioned turning the basement into a frog room and she loved it. So I may not need to build an elaborate stand for the frogs and instead build a shelving system in the basement.

[DigitalPunk]

Ok a bit more work done tonight though the pictures don't show it lol

The filter that will be used for the waterfall arrived today so we are now set to finish the carving of that feature

I did a rough test fit of the foam mountain side and saw that it was going to be a bit to small so I added 2 pieces (one to each side)

I then cut a space in the back of the mountain for the filter to live

Applied some Power grip to the new sides and used toothpicks to hold it in place while I carved on them to make them match up roughly with the terrain

Cut to big holes <caves> in the base of the mountain that will lead to the filters intake

I disliked how the holes looked from the front so I put a small piece back in at the top to hide them some what. Time will tell if this was a mistake or not.

I then began to work on the top <lid> for the mountain. The idea is simple enough. To give us easy access to the filter for regular maintenance and/or replacement if needed.

I struggled with what to do with the top of it for a long while. I decided to leave it flat and will put some moss and such up there. May even setup a small hide and see if a frog won't decide to use it... who knows. Did a test fit in the tank with the filter in place to make sure everything was going to fit decently. We don't want it to snug because the Foam coat will increase the size of it a bit after all 3 coats are applied.

The whole where the water will come from will have some screening or something across it to prevent any frogs from going spelunking. Next step will be to do a test with water in it and see how the water flows. Make some final adjustments to it. Time to order the foam coat.


The rest of the background is in flux. originally we had planned to care a background out of foam, but I showed my son what Cork bark looks like and now we may do some Cork Bark, Spray foam and Hygolon with moss painted on it... Not sure yet. a decision will be made tomorrow night and some more supplies ordered.

[deranged chipmunk]

Looks good so far! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you my want to read the label on the power grip. I'm almost positive it says it's NOT for use under water or exposed to constant water

[DigitalPunk]

It does, but we are only using small dots to keep the foam together for fitting. It is not intended to hold it all together permanently.

[DigitalPunk]

Water fall was tested last night. Made some modifications to the layout due to the amount of water the tank needed for the pump to work. Cut about an inch off the bottom and removed the stand the filter had to sit on to reach the top.

This project is on hold while we order the foam coat and the remaining pieces for the background. Hopefully we have some new updates in a week or 2.

[DigitalPunk]

Order was placed for most of the background materials today. My sons funds have run out so now he is in savings mode to get the rest of the stuff he wants for the tank. Once the order arrives later this week we will have more pictures. All we have done since the last update is prepare the false bottom for the next step.

We still need to order the stuff to cover and seal the foam and Paints for the waterfall.