Live rock on eggcrate, sand or on bottom?

[Beverly]

With what I siphon out of my tank every week, there's no way I'd ever have a sandbed again, nor would I use eggcrate. Both trap detritus and ultimately cause problems. Here's what I siphoned out of my 10g at the end of curing LR....

10g Water Change

[Nano]

^ I can vouche for what she's saying too! Her tanks are very, very, very clean I have seen them in person lol.

[intarsiabox]

If you have large rocks piled up that you are concerned with falling just drill holes in them and secure with acrylic rods. No chance of the rocks falling or even moving for that matter. You can do some pretty fancy rock work this way as well.

[mike31154]

I've used large diameter ABS pipe cut into various sized sections to support some of my LR. Holes in the sides will allow some movement & help mitigate stagnation in the sand bed. If I were to re scape, I would do similar, but instead of rounds with holes, I'd open the circles up into half or 3/4 sections. I'd also silicone them to the bottom, since keeping them in place was a pain while trying to place the rock on them. I didn't know ABS has a tendency to float. Not an issue in your case since you'll be working with a dry tank.

Something like this, but clean up the edges of course:



Not sure I'm a fan of the eggrate scenario, since the latticework would seem to have the tendency to restrict flow & sand movement within the individual squares?

[Nano]

also if you are using dry rock for you aquascape, I saw a video on youtube of someone using a hack saw to cut flat spots onto the rocks where they would sit on the glass, I think that makes things a bit more stable

[jtbadco]

I use the bottom halves of oyster shells as a barrier between the rock and the glass. That way if a sand sifting critter uncovers them they still look natural

[born]

I laid egg crate on mine. Did it so I knew my rock would really slide since I was building tall islands and didnt want to all of a sudden have my islands collapse. But if you do eggcrate make sure you have plenty of sand, cause if you dont it limits you to certain sand creatures. Like pistol shrimps, jawfish, sand sifters going through the sand.

[Aquattro]

I used eggcrate. Dumbest move I made in setting up my tank. Now it's in there for good, so no option to go bare bottom. The sand is blown all over the place, so it's exposed across the entire front of the tank and looks like ****e. I would not do that again....

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I used eggcrate. Dumbest move I made in setting up my tank. Now it's in there for good, so no option to go bare bottom. The sand is blown all over the place, so it's exposed across the entire front of the tank and looks like ****e. I would not do that again....

What if you had just put it under where the rock is? Would that have been OK?

You guys have got me wondering again now.... Someone mentioned a rock falling and possibly breaking the glass if there is no eggcrate. Is that possible? I would think with the water resistance, the rock wouldn't exactly free fall as if it was in just air. In my current tank, most of the rock is fused together with coralline algae, but what is loose sometimes does get knocked down by an urchin. But with my sand bottom, no harm gets done.

[mike31154]

This is why I've used sections of ABS pipe with holes in them. They don't take up the whole bottom like a rack of eggcrate, although you could cut that into sections as well. Other advantages of the ABS is that you can silicone the individual pieces to the bottom so they don't shift, you can cut them different sizes & shapes to accomodate rock shapes, holes & sections allow movement of sand & don't obstruct sand sifters as much. Having the rock elevated above the bottom this way allows more of it to be out of the sandbed & I think aid in filtration. My female Maroon clownfish has blown much of the sand away around her territory partially exposing a couple sections of the ABS, but eventually it gets covered with coralline, so not as much of an eyesore as white eggrate. The eggcrate should get coralline on it with time too though, I would think. When your tank is dry is the perfect time to do some planning & you can make the ABS technique work to your advantage when scaping. It's probably easier to remove individual pieces of ABS as well, rather than trying to get a large piece of eggrate out of there if you change your mind.