# 3D Tank Background For fish tank.



## yellowbelliedboy (Jun 12, 2010)

Hi all,
I'm looking to build a 3D background for one of my turtle tanks out of polystyrene and and I was wondering if anyone else on here had made one?

I know over in the US people use drylok and a cement dye to seal and colour the background, and to make it turtle proof but I can't seem to find drylok anywhere in the UK. What can I buy as a substitute to drylok to seal the polystyrene and make it hard enough to withstand turtles biting chunks off it?

I was thinking about maybe making the rough shape out of polystyrene and then use fibreglass to cover it and paint with aquarium safe paint. Would this work or would it not be cost effective and give a good rocky shape? 

Thanks


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## Becky Wheeler (Jun 15, 2006)

Hi mate,

Not sure if fibreglass is safe to use?? This might be a question for the aquatic section too?? I've always used poly, grout and varnish for my reptiles but for an aquarium setup I think this would be different as it's going to be submerged in water.


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## haunted-havoc (Aug 6, 2009)

ive asked this before, the best i know is that the drylock method is cement, that contains lime. which in turn makes the water brackish and too salty for a turtle.

i did turn up a few things though
poly floats, so you would need to hollow out it. you could use aquarium selant to stick it down, but that makes it permanent. i came up with the idea of hollow it out, and use neodynium magnets to hold it in place

and that certain types of epoxy resin is aquarium safe. so providing that you use enough to seal every inch you could use either grout or cemement, but grout is lighter.

if you were to use cement. the stuff is like a sponge and will just soak in all the epoxy resin. you can get cement sealer that negates this. but then you would still have to cover it in epoxy resin as the sealer wont "contain" the lime in the cement

if you uncover anything else, let me know


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