Sunday, March 8, 2009
:: Foam-Rock Wall ::
Basically to construct your wall you need 7 simple items:
01. Egg crate or light diffuser panel you can find at your local Home Depot or Menard's.
02. Great Stuff Foam spray insulation "red can", foam is inert after curing.
03. Base rock
04. Zip ties in a variety of lengths
05. Epoxy Finishing Resin (z-poxy)
06. crushed coal, sand and argonite.
07. cement drill bit and drill.
It is very simple, but you will need patience. 1st decide what you want to construct. My wife and I did the right side and a section of our back wall. I measured and cut the egg crate, then zip tied it together and re checked my measurements. Then I drilled holes in the base rock and zip tied it to the egg crate. The next step was to foam around the rock work. After this was complete we let it set up over night to fully cure. Once the foam is fully cured it is inert and will not pollute your tank. We then mixed up epoxy and brushed an area at a time and sprinkle a mix of sand and crushed coral on the epoxy. The epoxy does two things. First it acts as a UV protective shield for the foam and secondly it allows you to adhere the sand to cover the foam. Once you are done with the epoxy and sand you will want to shake it off and do a few rinses. Let it dry and check to see if you missed any spots. If so just go back and do some touch up.
When we went to install it we ran into a few problems, moving the 4" sand bed was a mess and created an awfully big sand storm in the tank. We had to use a knife and nippers to adjust the height of the foam and egg crate. Once we finished, we were just able to catch the top of the egg crate under the lip of the trim on top. I used a few clamps to hold it in place and put the largest piece of Live Rock on top along with sand. Now all that is left is to wait for the sand to settle and start re aquascaping. If you have any questions, fell free to ask.
My inspiration came from a post on Reef Central. The guy did an amazing job. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1300282
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