- Joined
- Nov 15, 2003
- Messages
- 3,687
Taking @Dorifto 's lead, here's a short blurb on how I make cork mosaic backgrounds, it's quite simple but thought it could give someone some inspiration, or help someone.
Materials: cork bark pieces, aquarium safe silicone (GE I silicone), sphagnum moss
This tank is 40"(L)x18"(W)x18"(T)
First I cleaned up the tank, made sure it doesn't have anything that would interfere with adhesion.
Then I laid the tank on its back, so the back of the tank was on the bottom
I then placed the cork bark in the tank, moving it around to make it look the way I wanted it.
Next step was to go away for a couple hours, then come back and look at the background and see if it still looks the way you want. (Measure twice, cut once, or in this case, look at it twice, silicone once)
Then you can start siliconing the pieces in. I work from both sides, doing a piece at a time so that the silicone have a chance to start to adhere to the glass without being bumped.
Here's how it looks after I siliconed them on:
Let it cure overnight, or for a few days. Then you're ready to stuff the cracks with moss.
You'll need to take pack the moss in tight so that it doesn't come loose. The tighter the moss is packed in the better.
Here's how it looks after the moss is added:
With sphagnum moss, if kept wet and given light, it will, in my experience, start to come back to life, producing an even more realistic looking background
This is a different tank, but you can see the green moss sections starting to come in
I hope this helps others design/build these backgrounds, they are by far my favorite style to build.
Materials: cork bark pieces, aquarium safe silicone (GE I silicone), sphagnum moss
This tank is 40"(L)x18"(W)x18"(T)
First I cleaned up the tank, made sure it doesn't have anything that would interfere with adhesion.
Then I laid the tank on its back, so the back of the tank was on the bottom
I then placed the cork bark in the tank, moving it around to make it look the way I wanted it.
Next step was to go away for a couple hours, then come back and look at the background and see if it still looks the way you want. (Measure twice, cut once, or in this case, look at it twice, silicone once)
Then you can start siliconing the pieces in. I work from both sides, doing a piece at a time so that the silicone have a chance to start to adhere to the glass without being bumped.
Here's how it looks after I siliconed them on:
Let it cure overnight, or for a few days. Then you're ready to stuff the cracks with moss.
You'll need to take pack the moss in tight so that it doesn't come loose. The tighter the moss is packed in the better.
Here's how it looks after the moss is added:
With sphagnum moss, if kept wet and given light, it will, in my experience, start to come back to life, producing an even more realistic looking background
This is a different tank, but you can see the green moss sections starting to come in
I hope this helps others design/build these backgrounds, they are by far my favorite style to build.
