Lino as Background, Poisonous???

[sammigold]

Ok! Here is the situation..... I rent a house that has a 4ft tank under a bar... it is fully set up and housing discus and community fishies....

this tank is a backdrop filtration set up and the problem is that we never knew how to put a background in it... I find that the algae build up between the backdrop section unsightly but we are unable to find anything thin enough to fit in between to clean out the algae and having no background am unable to hide it.... YUK


anyway, I have been toying with ideas of things that I can use as background that will have enough weight to stay in place just clipping it from the top (as am unable and unwilling to empty tank for long enough to silicon anything)

my ideas range from

1: siliconing small rocks/pebbles/glass stones to a flexible pvc plastic that I can roll up and insert into the tank and then unravel like a curtain (the rocks should be heavy enough to keep the whole thing from floating)

2. a sheet of plastic with sand adhesed? to it..(what would i use for adhesive though?) and weighed down with rocks suspended from fishing line tied through little holes at the bottom.... (can anybody picture what i mean? lol)

and 3rdly I just thought about using a sheet of that slate look lino or even just a plain colour... is there any reason why I couldnt ... would it be toxic? would it degrade really badly.... could I seal it??? so that it wouldnt leech any toxins? or degrade.

Or should I just get panels of coloured opaque acrylic and clip them to the top...

or does anyone else have any ideas of what we can do without taking the water out of our tank... and also because it is a rental we dont want it to be "permanent" as we need to be able to take it with us if we ever have to go.

thanks
sammi

ps. most of you already know I am blonde and that is why I never thought of it at the initial set up... impulsiveness etc..!

[DiscusEden]

I just gave a tank to some friends - I never had a background on it & had the obvious algae problem. As it was an established tank, we moved it as quckly & with as much water as possible. The next week I went back & it looked 100% better - they stuck a background on the outside of the glass. It was on the cheap, so I think they used contact - just a dark blue. I hope that since it's on the outside the glue, etc won't matter.

If you wanted to use lino, why not stick it on the outside and get around the toxicity issue?

Just a thought....

[sammigold]

thanks Discus eden but I cant put it on the outside because of the backdrop filter... how do I explain...

the tank has an inbuilt filter along the entire back of the tank which has all the filter media in it so anything stuck to the outside will never be seen through the filter media. so it has to attach to the inside of the glass and it cant go all the way to the bottom of the tank as that will stop the movement of the water.

(its like a side drop that you see at alot of lfs but right along the back of the tank... if it was my tank I would not have set it up that way but as it was already there I wanted to take advantage of it..)

does that make sense?

cheers....

ps. I have done the outside contact thing on my 3ft. it is a good Idea I actually contacted a piece of ply and wedged it between the stand and the tank so that I could remove it if I wanted to a some stage...

[DiscusEden]

You've painted a great picture! But unfortunately I'm out of ideas then Sammi, sorry! But I might be using your idea with the plywood - that's not how this thread was supposed to work!

Anyone else? I'll be interested to see what everyone comes up with.

[Merrilyn]

Sammi, your first idea is the best solution. Just use some of that plastic background that you buy from the LFS.

Adding weight to the bottom will keep it in place, and the top can be secured with clips, so it's easily removed.

[sammigold]

You've painted a great picture! But unfortunately I'm out of ideas then Sammi, sorry! But I might be using your idea with the plywood - that's not how this thread was supposed to work!

Anyone else? I'll be interested to see what everyone comes up with.

LOL, it can work in any way Discuseden, and if its helped you as well then cool!!!

Thanks LR I never thought of using the aquarium stuff, I was actually going to get a roll of pvc off a friend who owns a plastics factory... the same plastic that you see in the ticket wallets that you get from travel agencies when you go somewhere (not that I ever have lol)

That should be safe shouldnt it.... and it will cost me nothing which is a huge positive for me.

I have also had another idea of obtaining a piece of plywood and painting it with epoxy resin and either covering with somesort of sand or just painting bright blue before epoxying it.... (I've seen info on plywood tanks and thought of this as a sort of variant upon that idea)

and then my man had an idea of collecting a whole heap of twigs and siliconing them to panels of acrylic and popping them in......

(Its amazing what sort of ideas you can come up with.... I even thought of getting some of those panels of mosaic tiles that you can buy but I thought the tank might end up looking like the floor of someones bathroom!!! LOL)

[bushie]

hey sammi,
what about a piece of blue acrylic?
easy too,
otherwise I like the idea of acrylic with rocks siliconed on.
you can always take em with you and trim them down for dividers or such later.

[sammigold]

thanks bushie, I do like that idea... I just dont know if I want panels and because of the cross bars across the top of the tank I would not be able to fit one sheet across it would have to be three or 4 I think...

I am off today to see what I can find that is cheap and effective...

cheers
sammi

[fish_r]

here's another idea
http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=13
also, it's a bit of work, but u could also do a moss wall.
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/...Moss_Wall.html
they look superb

[sammigold]

Fish R!!!!!!! that is great!!! (The moss wall) I am going to attempt that.... how cool.... do you think I could use spanish/java moss. I cant work out what sort of moss he is using there...

Is the work in making it or keeping it alive... as I am definitely willing to take the time to make it but I dont know how successfull I would be at keeping it alive...

do you think I would need to have co2 to get it to grow nicely as I dont have that on my tank..(it is a very basic set up)

wow!! anyway, i am speechless... I had never thought of that!!