Homemade Decoration Help -- Submarine Mines

I found a really neat aquarium decoration that I may want to use in a future build someday, one with a sunken submarine or battleship! Unfortunately the etsy shop hasn't been active for a while, so I decided I may try to recreate it. I came here to ask you guys for some guidance, mostly for what materials are aquarium safe.

Would these be tank safe?:
- Resin ball (mold edited to include protuberances)
- Plastic chain (for jewelry maybe?)
- Suction cup (to anchor to the bottom of aquarium)

Would these materials leach anything into the water? A quick search yielded very limited/too large plastic chains; are any metals aquarium safe? Throw your ideas at me!

 

You might try small stainless steel chain, like the kind used for jewelry. You can find suction cups for aquarium use pretty easily, they are often used to anchor air lines to the inside of tank glass. Sorry I can't help with the resin ball... maybe you could fill your mold with aquarium sealant?

Good luck!

 

You might try small stainless steel chain, like the kind used for jewelry. You can find suction cups for aquarium use pretty easily, they are often used to anchor air lines to the inside of tank glass. Sorry I can't help with the resin ball... maybe you could fill your mold with aquarium sealant?

Good luck!

I wasn't sure if stainless steel is safe so I was leaning toward plastics, but if stainless steel is safe it may work. I found a small link polyethylene chain! Turns out all you have to do is look places other than Amazon, lol.

Anyone know if this would be safe?

 

I'm not sure, but that head is terrifying!

 

I'm not sure, but that head is terrifying!

I know right, it spooked me too when I first checked it out!

 

It may not float like you are hoping. If you add a center piece of styrofoam ball into the middle of the mold (as best as possible) it will help it float and shouldn't hurt anything.

 

Dont use suction cups use spilt shots from bait and tackle store then you can easily move where ever

 

Petsmart has these things. I've seen them in a few of their fish tanks.

 

Don't know about the feather-lite casting resin, but a cheap option to get that effect might be to get some styrofoam balls and small doweling--cut the dowel into short pieces and push them into the styrofoam at intervals to be the spikes, then paint the whole thing with an epoxy-resin paint. Most 2-part epoxy paints are aquarium safe after they cure.

You can even flick the styrofoam with a little acetone to get surface pitting, but I don't know how that would translate through the resin.

 

Don't know about the feather-lite casting resin, but a cheap option to get that effect might be to get some styrofoam balls and small doweling--cut the dowel into short pieces and push them into the styrofoam at intervals to be the spikes, then paint the whole thing with an epoxy-resin paint. Most 2-part epoxy paints are aquarium safe after they cure.

You can even flick the styrofoam with a little acetone to get surface pitting, but I don't know how that would translate through the resin.

Ha, this is the same thing I thought of when reading the OP's post, styro balls and some dowel pieces. Both come in all sizes.

 

Don't know about the feather-lite casting resin, but a cheap option to get that effect might be to get some styrofoam balls and small doweling--cut the dowel into short pieces and push them into the styrofoam at intervals to be the spikes, then paint the whole thing with an epoxy-resin paint. Most 2-part epoxy paints are aquarium safe after they cure.

You can even flick the styrofoam with a little acetone to get surface pitting, but I don't know how that would translate through the resin.

I didn't think of this, but I do know styrofoam floats so I don't have to worry about figuring out the density of whatever resins are out there, not sure about the acetone tho, could you elaborate on that bit?

Dont use suction cups use spilt shots from bait and tackle store then you can easily move where ever

That's a good idea too, I'm sure a small one would be able to hold down a styrofoam ball too!

 

I didn't think of this, but I do know styrofoam floats so I don't have to worry about figuring out the density of whatever resins are out there, not sure about the acetone tho, could you elaborate on that bit?

In the product description you linked they say that they have a specialized way to it the surface and cause "battle damage". Well, if you take some acetone and spray or flick it onto the ball, it eats away at some stryofoam, causing pitting. I've seen it used in other application to create "battle damage", but it works best when overlayed with a thin coat of something, like spray paint, then rubbed with a contrasting "rust" color to highlight the edges. I think for aquarium durability you shouldn't use spray paint directly on styrofoam--even the safe stuff is too likely to flake off. And epoxy resin paint is very liquid, and wouldn't capture the detail of the pitting at all.

In looking up some info on epoxy resin paint (it's been years since I last used it), it is very prone to forming microbubbles, especially if a layer which is colder than the base layer is applied. So if you wanted to try for "battle damage", some experimenting with purposefully forming microbubbles to give the surface that rough, pitted look might work.

...now I want to experiment