safe paint

[simple]

What would be a safe paint to use inside of an aquarium. I read that epoxy was good, but my local store only had epoxy spray paint. Would this be safe?

 

[monty]

I have no idea, but I would worry that copper is used in some pigments for blue-green colors, so what's normally thought of as a "harmless pigment" might be a problem no matter what the base of the paint is. But keep in mind the "I have no idea" part, this is more intended to prompt people who actually know stuff...

 

[cuttlegirl]

Why are you painting the inside of your aquarium?

 

[Animal Mother]

Why are you painting the inside of your aquarium?

I have never heard of such.

 

[simple]

Why are you painting the inside of your aquarium?

because i am dividing my 110 gal aquarium to make it for two octos, and i am using plexiglass so i thought it would be good to paint the plexiglass so they cant see each other.

 

[Colin]

you'd be better to try and get some acrylic that isnt clear???

 

[Animal Mother]

Plexiglass will warp. I used it for lids before, had to flip them occasionally because the pieces bowed in.

 

[gholland]

Animal Mother... how thick was the acrylic you used? Just curious since I was planning to use it for a cover myself. However, I don't think bowing would be a problem for the application that simple has in mind with the sheet oriented vertically.

simple... you might consider just buying colored acrylic to save yourself the trouble and worries of painting. USplastic.com is a place I've purchased from in the past. They have acrylic sheets in a variety of colors.

 

[Animal Mother]

The pieces I used were about 1/2 inch thick. Vertical orientation might not cause a problem but he would still have to color them to keep the octos from stressing each other out, so I still suggest acrylic.

Consider, octopuses have been kept in divided tanks before... a specially designed, very well planned out, EXTREMELY expensive tank comes to mind... and the octopuses still outsmarted the design and got into one side together. One killed the other. Search for threads by member Goodwin9. His tank was VERY elaborate, still didn't work out.

Good luck.

 

[simple]

i was planning on using two sheets of acrylic, each 8 inches apart. Then i was going to drill hundreds of tiny holes in each to keep the flow going. Except i would make the holes be offset so the neither octopus can ever directly see the other octo. I will also make separate lids for each half of the tank. I was planning on making the dividers removable using the instructions from this link: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_3/cav3i1/Baffles/baffles.htm

 

[Paradox]

Krylon paints are used often in reeftanks. Typically the type that fuses to plastics.

But black plexi would be better =)

 

[simple]

Yea i decided to just get black acrylic. Glasscages.com will cut it for me and everything but it is a little pricey. Does anyone know of other websites that can custom cut it, and are economic. I would cut it myself but all the sizes i've found are small by a little (which would ruin the point of the divider) or big by a lot.

 

[Paradox]

Do you not have plastic stores near you? We have a store in the bay area called Tap Plastics.

 

[cuttlegirl]

i was planning on using two sheets of acrylic, each 8 inches apart. Then i was going to drill hundreds of tiny holes in each to keep the flow going. Except i would make the holes be offset so the neither octopus can ever directly see the other octo. I will also make separate lids for each half of the tank. I was planning on making the dividers removable using the instructions from this link: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_3/cav3i1/Baffles/baffles.htm

I have been thinking about this design... just because the octopus can't see each other, doesn't mean they can't smell/taste or use chemoreception to know that there is another octopus nearby...

Other thoughts that occurred to me... if you use glass, you could probably get one of those glass auto repair places to cut you a piece to fit. We did this for a piece of glass for our dining room table.

 

[DWhatley]

Funny you should mention Tap, I just placed an online order 5 seconds before seeing this post :>)

https://www.tapplastics.com

I was searching for the link TONMO because Monty had mentioned some colored acrylic tubing in an earlier post and I knew they had acrylic hinges.