styrofoam

[Dinocine]

I'm considering to place carved and painted styrofoam inside/both sides of my tank. I would like to do so for the back of the tank too but that means I have to place my heater on the bottom of the tank, which I do not feel comfortable. My concerns are the durability and the safety of using one in a tank, especially sensitive fish like discus. Any feedback will be appreciated.

 

[dattack]

Why don't you put the heater on the sides of the tank or cut the styrofoam to place a heater?
Or place a heater on the HOB filter.

 

[Dinocine]

If a heater is placed in the niche of styrofoam, how wide is the gap bewteen the border of the styrofoam and the heater? I assume that if the heater is too close to the styrofoam, it might overheat the styrofoam. I'm not sure whether the styrofoam will deteriorate over period and discolouration may occur. Once I set up a Discus tank, I would like to maintain  the initiate setup and do not wish to tear it down because of the failing styrofoam.

 

[ronrca]

thekrib.com has a very good article about using styrofoam. Maybe that will give you some good ideas.

http://www.thekrib.com/TankHardware/janne.html