DIY Rock Ornament
 

I randomly decided today that I would attempt my first DIY rock backdrop. I went out to the store, bought the foam, and pieced it together.

http://i54.tinypic.com/mwctg4.jpg



I then planned out how to carve it out to create a cave inside. I left the back uncovered so that if need be, I could look through the back of the tank into the cave.



http://i53.tinypic.com/13z0mwz.jpg



I held them together using toothpicks (as I read on numerous DIY posts and websites) and then sanded it all down to a nice rock-like finish.


http://i53.tinypic.com/2ccnrrp.jpg



This is an ongoing process so I will keep it updated on how it is coming. What you are seeing is about 5 hours of work. Let me know what you think!

I also made a small structure for the other side of the tank out of the scrap pieces of Styrofoam.



http://i51.tinypic.com/33mo6l4.jpg



http://i53.tinypic.com/10ct1d4.jpg

Looks good, you'll probably never see you fish again with that great cave, as it will be a favorite hang out.

Yea, that's what I'm thinking too. I might want to make the holes just small individual caves instead of one massive cave so that they are less likely to do that

looks veery nice!!

I have never seen this before, so forgive me if I sound dumb... is it just regular styrofoam? Do you coat it with something before you put it in the aquarium?

It is in fact regular Styrofoam. I went out and bought one small sheet of it for about $8. It's good to use because it's easily shaped with sand paper or any knife. I was baffled when I first saw it too. After this, I need to use some sort of sealant on the seams between the pieces of Styrofoam (because they are only held together with toothpicks) and then paint on a few layers of concrete mix. After that is done, I can paint it in a stone coloring, probably grayish in my case. I'm also going to try to make some plants "growing" out of it, but I havent decided anything yet.

Plenty of people do things like this and there are lots of resources to tell you how. Here's another project someone did that was a bit more extensive than mine.
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/d...kground-19898/