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Foam bottom faux sandbed

badbread

badbread

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Good afternoon all, Happy Monday! Ugh...

So I stopped by Jason's (Eight) place this weekend to pick up a tank (Thanks Jason!) and being the great reefer is he showed Tong and I his setup, tanks, etc...

In his in wall display tank he had a foam bottom faux sand bed that was really nice and cool looking that came with the tank. On my new tank I was planning on going bare bottom but fell in love with the faux foam sand bottom. I was thinking of attempting something like this myself with some of that reef safe foam, eggcrate, and some sand.

Has anyone done this?

The plan is to cut out some eggcrate the size of the tank then create a mold.

So I would make the small hills, valleys, indents, etc... upside down in this box of sand, lay the plastic film over it, fill the plastic with foam, place the eggcrate on the top of that, let dry and then adhesive a layer of real sand on the piece that was against the plastic.

Does that make sense? Any thoughts? Would that work?
 
Hey Jay, glad you're going to make use of that 40 breeder. :) You should do a search on RC for faux sand beds... there's a lot of them out there. Some people actually just apply the foam directly to the bottom of the tank. It will be a permanent installation, but it might not be too big of a deal since you're setting up a pretty manageable tank cost/size wise.

You just spray the foam onto the bottom, sculpt to taste and let harden. Then you apply a two part epoxy to the foam and sprinkle with a heavy coat of sand.

Another even easier approach is to just get two part epoxy, coat the bottom of the tank with a thick layer of epoxy (don't use any foam) and then apply the sand. Your bottom will be flat and without hills, but I think it would look nice... (My faux sand bed is basically flat.)

I think the mold will be a bit of a pain to do...
 
Thanks guys, I agree it would be a PITA to do, I'm nervous about doing it in tank in case it comes out crappy and I hate it. I just tried searching RC with a bunch of search terms but couldn't find a single post.

I'll experiment a bit with just foam on sand and see what happens, I have no idea the foam is going to be to mold and sculpt, etc...
 
Here's a few:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1188352&highlight=faux+sand
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1300282&highlight=faux+sand
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=447292&highlight=faux+sand

Try searching for "faux sand"

Several threads under those terms...
 
thanks Jason, after reading a lot I came across this thread.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=392144&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

It seems really cool, any thoughts on that method?
 
So I went with the epoxy faux sand bed. Rinsed the sand out for about 30 mins until the water ran totally clear. Dried out the sand for about 2 weeks on contractor paper, I made sure it was super super super dry. I bought the 32oz. kit of epoxy, mixed it up like crazy, and then mixed it into the sand in a bucket. After all the sand was nicely coated, I used a little garden shovel to get it in there.

It's been curing for 30 hours now, I'm going to let it go about 2-3 more days before rinsing and finally bringing the tank upstairs.

Here are some shit*y pics:

IMG_6075.JPG


IMG_6076.JPG


IMG_6077.JPG


Last picture shows the eggcrate I cut out to lay the sand into.
 
adolfo425 said:
very nice job there. I will have to see how it turns out. Is there any benefits to running a sand bed like this.
Click to expand...
The biggest benefit IMO is the ability to use higher flow paradigms without sand blowing everywhere.
 
.... and still have that sandy look.

The downside is any fish that dig burrows in the sand will rub their little fins to nubs and hate you the rest of their life :D
 
So some SCARY moments the other night when I water tested with the sand bottom.

I start to fill and hear slight cracking sounds, I get freaked out, drain the tank and inspect very carefully. I see no cracks anywhere so I start to fill again. A little past the point I got to before and I hear more cracking sounds. I freak out again, drain it and inspect again. No cracks or anything. Again, I start filling, I get to a point above where i heard the noise before and some really loud cracking happens now. Again, drain, inspect. I say f' it, I've come this far and fill the f'ing thing up. More cracking sounds, whatever.

I water test it for a few days everything is working fine, drain it again to make quadruple sure everything is ok and it is.

I attribute the cracking noise to the settling of the sand and epoxy. The weight of the water must have forced parts down and made it settle in. Thank god it didn't crack, all the silicone seams seem fine, and there are no crack anywhere that I can see.
 
I really like the concept of having the sand look without the sand storms in a high flow system. My guess is that over time your faux sand bed will eventually get covered with coraline algae.
 
People who have done it do report the sand bed getting covered in coralline. I was talking with Rich (Thales) at the swap and what he does is add about a cup or two of sand to stop the coralline from growing on the sand bed.
 
badbread said:
People who have done it do report the sand bed getting covered in coralline. I was talking with Rich (Thales) at the swap and what he does is add about a cup or two of sand to stop the coralline from growing on the sand bed.
Click to expand...
What type of epoxy did you end up using and where did you purchase it? I'm working on a foam rock wall and read that z-poxy is a good one to use but I can't find anyone local that carries the product. Are you planning on doing the rock wall too? I think it would be super cool looking in a 40 gallon breeder.
 
I was looking into doing a foam wall but I've run out of time. I have to be out of my old place by the end of the month and still haven't got this tank up and running.

I used this stuff:

http://www.save-on-crafts.com/enlikit8o8ys.html

Envirotex epoxy, they have it at Michaels craft stores.
 
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