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I'm finally getting around to making a 3d rock background. I'll be using plastic painted with regular cement with pigment mixed in followed by a sealer coat of some sort. Te tank is already full of water and fish. Therefore I wont be able to nor do I have any desire to seal the background into the tank. For this reason there will be some water trapped behind the bg. Is this ok or will it cause problems? I read somewhere that there shouldnot be any water behind it. Thanks

Water behind the tank can in fact be a problem. It's possible for small waste particles to get trapped behind there. Because there is little flow, the trapped particles will decompose and eventually the oxygen will be used up due to this decomposition. You could then have an area of anaerobic activity. Anaerobes often produce hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotton eggs; this can be dangerous if you move the background at all and allow these products to escape, which can poison fish and cause death.

In this way, I imagine the problems are similar to the situation of having too deep of a sand layer in your tank.

On the other hand, and I have never seen this done, you could probably put a whole line of bubblers behind the background to make sure water is circulating around back there. All articles that I have seen, however, suggest simply sealing the background to the tank.

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I was looking at a commercial back ground at the LFS the other day and there is no way it could be completely sealed all they had done was put dobs of silicone at intervals and pushed it against the back of the glass. The way they are made it would be difficult to completely seal it 100%.

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Simply have your filter intakes behind the BG. This will cause water movement behind it and should stop any issues. the bubbler idea could work but it might take some work. need to watch and make sure the bubblers arnt colelcting somewhere. the BG will have enough issue staying down without added air pushing it up.

This brings me to my question, how are you going to keep it down if not attached?

I was thinking I might incorporate a cave of some sort into the bg at the bottom right hand corner and then almost have the cave extend tothe top left hand corner to a hole at the water level. Then I could possibly put a bubbler in the cave making it work like a ugf.

I think that might work. Then i can get a black ghost knife fish and that could be his cave??

It could work, but with a cave that long I bet you'll never see your BGK during the daytime until you feed.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.