8 months ago I tried an slightly controversial aquarium background idea - using a mattress.
Don't know if it has been tested elsewhere but I got it (not personally though) from a more or less legendary Swedish aquarium profile - Sune Holm - who himself has shaped and prepared rubber-foam mattresses into very nice and natural backgrounds.
The controversial part is of course if the mattress contains components that will disolve in the water and cause problems.
Sune Holm has used his mattress backgrounds now for quite some time and have so far not recorded negative issues - as far as I've heard.
Anyway.
Positive things:
- Cheap material - even for free if one has or can get an old rubber-foam mattress.
- Fairly easy to shape. I used scissors, knifes, tongs/pliers and my finger nails.
- Once wet it won't float like styrofoam and therefore it doesn't need to be attached as firmly.
- Easy to put plants in. Just cut an insicion and in goes the plant.
- Can be used as a part of filtration. I have the external filter intake hidden behind the background.
All the water going to the filter pump has to pass through the mattress foam. I'm sure most of the watter passes very close to the intake but the total filter capacity should be rather good. The external filter is very clean and pumps water with almost unincreased capacity for prolonged periods.
- Since it's soft it's possible to get the whole background into the tank without remowing bigger tank's "support beams".
Negative issues:
- Possible health problems due to possible poisonous substances. However I haven't yet heard of any health issues because of this. That is of course by no means a guarantee.
Also - how to determine fish death if there are no other obvious causes (known diseases, parasites etc.)? So still a questionmark on this one.
- If it comes to show that this one (possible) negative issue has some substance to it - it quickly rules out all the positive ones.
- Another issue: The obvious risk of Pl*cos eating on and of it.
But I tried. Daringly or stupidly. That still remains to be seen.
So far everything seems to be just great. Not one single fish has shown any signs of weakness or odd behaviour during these first eight months. Nock wood and always use the * in Pl*co.
But it's not only the shaping of the mattress. There are also some other construction elements in the process of turning the surface of the mattress into something "natural".
...and I didn't do all parts correctly. But now I know better.
More about that later.
