To egg or not to egg?

[Thunderfan]

Tomorrow I start on my aqua scape for my 75g build. I have seen people put egg crate on the compete bottom of the tank and some don't use any. I am on the fence about it. While I see the benefit for spreading out the load. I also see down side like it trapping stuff and the critters dogging in the sand being limited. I was thinking that if I do use it I would just put smaller pieces on the more pointed contact points or to give some stability. I am shooting for a 1.5-2" sand bed. If the issues that I was thinking are non existent than I may just put it under all of it. As always thanks for any input.

 

[mc-cro]

I have never used it. I always set my rock directly on the glass, if your really concerned about pressure points, put the rock on some acrylic or pvc.

 

[Gopi]

I used eggcrate under my rocks, then added substrate. The nassarius snails didn't seem to have any issues moving around. I didn't notice any issues with that when I took down the 55. I did if any burrowers caused rocks to shift they wouldn't hit the glass itself.

 

[Big Larr]

I think that if you plan on having some wrasse species that bury themselves or tiger conch it may be a problem for them unless the sand is really deep then they may be ok I've never had a problem without using it do to the sand evens out most of the weight load as long as you stack the rock to minimize the chance of a collapse and a large rock falling to the bottom glass

 

[mfinn]

I've never used eggcrate, but have created acrylic rock rack to stack my rock to help hold it off the bottom of the tank.

 

[DaveMorris]

I always use egg crate on the bottom more to protect the glass than using it for weight distribution. The rock isn't heavy enough to worry about evening out the weight. Nothing gets trapped in the squares because it is already filled with sand. The fish don't care either. The likelyhood of the rock breaking the bottom of the tank is extremely slim, but why take the chance when you can protect the glass for about $10? I would never stack rock directly on a layer of sand. Burrowing fish can cause the rock to topple over due to the fish's digging undermining the rock.

 

[Thunderfan]

My plan was to build my rock on the glass then put sand around it. I could see bad things with rock on top of sand.

 

[roli112]

I used egg crate only under the rocks them selves not the whole tank. None of my livestock seem to mind and I have a lot of burrowed in a 180 including a sand sifting star, 2 serpent starfish, a fighting conch and 4 engineer gobies. Will keep using egg crate in future builds.
P.S. look for broken pieces for a discount, you will end up cutting it to size anyway.

 

[BryanD]

I don't use it on the bottom, just put the rock there, but I built 2 shelves out of it and put them in the right rear corner, lower one bigger than the upper one, to give my tank kind of a "bottom of a rock slide" effect. Looks pretty good, you can see it but most of it has some coraline algae and regular algae on it so it isn't as noticeable. Used supports made out of some PVC pipe, just cut "plus signs" in the tops and place egg crate in the crosses.

 

[Thunderfan]

I didn't end up using it on the bottom. My rock work was stable and didn't feel I needed it. I am thinking about making covers out of it. Would the holes in it be to big for "jumper" fish?

 

[ARVERLY]

I didn't end up using it on the bottom. My rock work was stable and didn't feel I needed it. I am thinking about making covers out of it. Would the holes in it be to big for "jumper" fish?

Yes! Use BRS 1/4" screen

 

[Rausch]

I would advise against it, i know a lot of people dont have issues with the detritus building up inside the eggcrate but that can be a big issue. I just finished a 90 gallon build and didnt use eggcrate. We built PVC racks and used zip ties to create a rock structure on top of the PVC skeleton. This way the rock isnt sitting directly on the glass, only pvc tubing. but this way if you decide you want to go bare bottom you can with no issues, if you want to go DSB you can with no issues. I just think about how you might feel in 5 years, if you want to change things up you can