Denny
06-13-2004, 10:51 AM
I was at a local business this week that I was previously unaware of that makes simulated rock patterns out of a urethane product in a 4x8 sheet for nature displays. I talked to him for a while about using them in an aquarium setting like the Back To Nature backgrounds and if they would work and he said they are used in water environments all of the time like in the large aquariums and animal exhibits at zoos. It turns out after looking at them, that they have much more design flexibility and detail than the back to nature ones and I can get them pre primed and ready to paint for much less than the BTN products He can also paint them but the price goes up because he is very much a perfectionist and he ends up with alot of time in them. This guy also does replicated trees and also things like Antlers. He had a reproduction of the world's #8 buck that are made of a urethane and then painted. It looks so real that if he wouldn't have told us, we would have never known the difference.
If there is some interest in these, I could do a group order where I buy enough sheets to do multiple orders and cut them to size and ship to your door. As far as price, It looks like about the 400 dollar price range for a 4x8 sheet.Out of that you could do 4-90 gallon tanks at a cost of around 100 dollars a tank, which is an excellent price for this type of quality.
He is also looking into whether he could do something like a sand or rock looking bottom that could be siliconed to the bottom of the tank to give a substrate look if anyone is interested. personally I think that could be an excellent product for discus tanks.
They look similar to these: http://www.back-to-nature.de/england/rocky.shtml But would be primed so you can paint them to look like any rock you want. I could send them slightly larger than needed and you could trim them to a perfect fit and silicone them in place.
If there is enough interest, I will go take a few pictures of them and get some accurate pricing.
If there is some interest in these, I could do a group order where I buy enough sheets to do multiple orders and cut them to size and ship to your door. As far as price, It looks like about the 400 dollar price range for a 4x8 sheet.Out of that you could do 4-90 gallon tanks at a cost of around 100 dollars a tank, which is an excellent price for this type of quality.
He is also looking into whether he could do something like a sand or rock looking bottom that could be siliconed to the bottom of the tank to give a substrate look if anyone is interested. personally I think that could be an excellent product for discus tanks.
They look similar to these: http://www.back-to-nature.de/england/rocky.shtml But would be primed so you can paint them to look like any rock you want. I could send them slightly larger than needed and you could trim them to a perfect fit and silicone them in place.
If there is enough interest, I will go take a few pictures of them and get some accurate pricing.