Jennie:
What do you think of the backgrounds?
Chris:
Basic.
Jennie:
Rude.
Chris:
It looks really nice.
Speaker 1:
is really nice.
Jennie:
Hey guys, it’s Jennie. Welcome back once again to Solid Gold. In the last video you guys saw me unboxing my new backgrounds from Aquadecor backgrounds. Today it’s time to start siliconing these backgrounds onto the tanks. We’re going to start- Chris and I, Chris is in here helping me checking out the dart frogs right now. Who wouldn’t? They’re adorable.
We’re going to start with some of these rock backgrounds here. We’re going to work on the aquariums first. Maybe even try to sort out some of the tubing and the plumbing that has to go on behind these tanks. I don’t think I’ve showed you guys this part yet. We did get some flexible tubing with ball valves for each and every aquarium that’s going to be on this wall. These are all set and ready to go. We have to scoot the rack back and then put these Phebe’s hoses that are sticking down through the holes in the back of the rack.
We’ve clearly got our work cut out for us and we better get started. We started setting up the first background in the aquarium that we’re going to install first. I knew this was going to happen but I wanted to see exactly how much space there was to work with. These are going to
run into the background. You don’t want to do this if you are worried about voiding the warranty on your background. Because they say that drilling into the voids the warranty. I don’t recommend doing this at all but just because I have to. I’m going to drill some holes into the background here. Then get some longer pieces of pipe. The intake and the overflow can stick out past the background into the tank.
Aquadecor does have the ability to actually make chambers behind the background and in the background for you. All you have to do is tell them the location of your filter inlets and outflows and they will go ahead and carve those custom-made chambers out where you need them for you before sending the background to you. They actually take a lot of the work out of it for you which is nice. Me being me I was like no I want to do it myself.
We’re heading over to the hardware store now to pick up everything. Back from the hardware store now we’ve got some smaller couplers. These are three-quarter inch and then some one and a half inch couplers. Then also the pipe to go with it. We’ll be able to attach the coupler onto here and then put this on the end of the pipe. Cut the pipe to however long we need it for it to stick forward into the aquarium past the background. Then with the larger diameter pipe, we’ll be able to do the same thing with the overflow. Since this end of the bulkhead sticks out into the tank a little bit and creates a bump so this surface of the background can’t sit flat on the glass. Chris is carving out a little- what would you call that?
Chris:
A recess.
Jennie:
A recessed area [laughs]. Why the long face? Chris got the hole hollowed out for me. Where the tube has to go through and now it fits perfectly in place and we’re going to silicone it on.
Day two, working on getting all the backgrounds installed on the aquarium. So far we’ve gotten this one installed. This is the black and white slate rock one. We’ve cut out a hole for the siphon stopper return and siliconed all around it. It’s going to be watertight around that. We also cut out a hole for the H2 overflow. The only thing left to do on this one is fix up the drain hole. We have a hole down here on the bottom two and that’s so I can open a ball valve and easily drain the aquarium for water changes. We’re waiting on a basket intake cover for that and intake strainer for that. Then we’ll be able to install that on a pipe sticking out at the bottom there.
This one over here is installed pretty much exactly the same way. There’s a siphon stopper return installed over there. Then same with the H2 overflow. The drain holes for this one is actually down on the other side. This third one this is the first of the two that had a different material. It’s not a thick foam like the rock ones are. We have the siphon stopper installed. You can see actually in this one since it’s hollow back here. You can see the pipe back there and the bulkhead that is sticking out the back. Over on this side, we have the H2 overflow. Again you can see there’s a hole cut through the background that that goes into. Then you can see the tubing sticking out and the bulkhead in the back. The drain hole for this one is on this side but instead of having a basket strainer stick out into the aquarium, we just decided to have the water drain out of a hole here and over on this side right here.
Since this one is hollow back here there’s going to be water back behind it even if you silicone really well and get a watertight seal all the way around it. I still have to have water back here because if there’s not, all this water pressure is gonna be pushing against it and caving it in in certain places. For my application, I’m having water in the back, back behind the background here in addition to water in the main area of the tank. In order to prevent it from getting stagnant back here, I have installed a little water pump and place the intake right in front of one of these little mesh screen holes that we made. That’s going to take water in from the main area of the aquarium and bring it back here into the background. Then it’s going to push it all the way down here, and then it has an exit hole right there.
Then over here the last aquarium background that we’re about to install, the first step is going to be notching the corners. Because the bead of silicone is so thick especially on the bottom here. We have to actually cut a 45-degree angle into the background. It looks like Chris already did that actually. Now we’re going to work on cutting out the holes for the siphon stopper return and H2 overflow. Then some circulation holes like we did on the other background that’s like this.
It’s been a few days since Chris and I finished installing all the Aquadecor backgrounds out here in my custom aquariums fish tanks. I’m back out here in the fish room now after all the silicone has fully dried to show you guys the results. Here’s the first background that has the fake rock this is the black and white slate looking one. I still can’t decide where I’m going to put this. I know I want one of the rock ones here and then one here and then one of the tree stump ones there and there so they’re alternated. I’m going to have my goldfish split up between all these different aquariums. With my butterfly telescopes here’s a couple of them right here. Who have always been my favorite goldfish of all time in the tank that has my favorite background. I want that one to be closer to eye level so the butterfly telescopes are going to be on one of these bottom two tanks here. I can’t decide which background between the two rock ones I like better.
First, I thought it was going to be this one because it has that black and white aesthetic that I really, really like but I actually think that I like this rock background better. To me it just looks a little bit more natural and realistic. I don’t know though. I’m so torn because both of them are beautiful. Guys you need to help me decide which of the two fake rock backgrounds should my favorite goldfish and my butterfly telescopes live in. That’s the two fake rock backgrounds and then we have this tree stump background. Absolutely gorgeous all siliconed in place. We didn’t hide the water circulation holes quite as well on this background as we did with the other one because we did this one first and put them where we thought they would make the most sense. Then on the second tree stump background, we realized that we could actually get a little creative with hiding them.
Actually, when you look at this one from the front you can’t even see the water circulation holes anywhere at all but they’re there. This one is on this side of that tree stump. Then this one is on this side of that tree stump. This one didn’t turn out quite so nice because we didn’t think about doing that until we got to the second one. Once the substrate is in there and these are pushed back against the back black wall of the aquarium racks I don’t think you’ll really see those circulation holes that much.
That’s the background fully installed. I’m still just waiting on the basket intake strainers that I ordered for the two fake rock backgrounds. That’s going to go over that and cover it up just so no fish can get sucked into that hole while the water is draining out of the tank. Yes, really just a few loose ends to wrap up here with these backgrounds and then they’re ready for water substrate, lights, filtration and fish. That’s super exciting. I have been staring at my fish from the top view only in this boring plain old black tub on the floor for way too long and I’m really excited to finally get them in these gorgeous aquariums. It’s unreal to me. It really is. It’s like hard to imagine that the day is finally going to come because I’ve been working on it for so long and saying I’m going to do it for so long and everything is finally coming together and it’s going to happen.
I also wanted to mention guys Aquadecor had asked me to mention this and I forgot to do that in my last video but they have had a lot of companies or individuals popping up claiming to be Aquadecor. They want to make sure that if you’re looking for an Aquadecor background you go through their website aquadecor.com. That’s the only place that you can get them and if you’re wondering if the background you have is an authentic Aquadecor background just look on the back because each one is stamped with Aquadecor and a serial number.
Thank you guys so much for watching. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any of these upcoming videos and if you are subscribed , hit that bell button too because I’ve noticed recently that a lot of my subscribers aren’t actually seeing my videos but if you hit that bell button you’ll be notified every time I make a new video so you can come and see it and make sure you don’t miss out on anything. Thank you guys so much for watching I’ll see you next time and until then stay gold.
Hey guys, I have a new merch design that I’m really excited to share with all of you. Officially we have some new solid gold merch. I’ll show you guys the t-shirt, I’m actually wearing it right now. It says solid gold aquatics and look at how cute that is. I wish I actually looked that cute in real life because, Oh my God. It’s available in t-shirts and also tank tops. Yes, that’s a tank top, also on mugs and stickers. I know you need another solid gold sticker in your life, your laptop looks a little bare. These are available on my teespring store you guys. Check out the link in the description section down below.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time. This is what I use for my toothpaste. It’s not going.
Speaker 2:
You must get paid by the hour.
Jennie
Why? You do.
