[gridley]

I realize that I'm a rookie at this, and my expereince is very limited, but I'll add my 2 cents to the conversation as well . . . I choose to use the eggcrate on the bottom before I added rock with the thought that it may keep me from scratching the tank and possibly damaging the tank if I was clumsy and dropped a rock. At the same time I had seen some tanks with exposed eggcrate and I didn't like the look of that. So . . . after the aquascaping was done I took my sidecutters and snipped the eggcrate as close to the rock as was feasible. It took about 15 min of time. My thinking was that if the sand gets blow around there is less chance of having some eggcrate exposed. So far I have not has any eggcrate exposed.