False Bottom Options.

[Waterkeeper]

I am working on my new viv. a 44 gallon corner hex. 22x22x25.

I am using eggcrate bottom and lining it with some nylon screen. Is it necessary to add gravel on top of the false bottom or can I put the sphagnum right on the screen? I would like to preserve as much height inside the tank as I can for my Red Eyes, and also make it as light as possible. I live in 4th floor apt and will have to move it one day. I see most are placing a layer of gravel and I would like to do without it.

In my 10 gal I just put gravel down on the glass bottom and a screen, and packed a layer of sphagnum and a layer of potting soil and put in all my plants bare-root. I get TONS of growth from my plants.. too much actually that's why we are jumping to a much bigger tank. DEF going to pot my plants this time.

here is a pic of my 10g back when it was new, one taken today, and a good view of how the bottom was done. when the 44 is finished I'm just going to use this 10 as a grow out for plants for my work.

[Devil_Boy]

The only reason for the gravel above the eggcrate is to keep the water from wiccking up though the substrate, i put my tank together and my water sits right at the bottome of the eggcrrate and i had a thin layer of 1/2" gravel over it thinking it would be enough and suprisingly the water can wick that far up so i had to pull all the soil out and add another bag of gravel.

Ive never used sphagnum so i dont know if that would wick water better or worse. but i would plan for a layer of gravel to be safe.

[Waterkeeper]

I'm designing my FB to sit at an angle up from front to back to help support runoff. the back would be 1" above waterline and the front was to dip into the water creating a "beach" kinda thing so that I don't see any of the dirt from the front of the tank... just water.

I guess this will support wicking of the water huh? does the water wick only because it is in contact with the substrate or does it find it's way up into the soil anyway?

maybe then I will use greatstuff to create the "beach" and keep my egg crate with 1" clearance above waterline.

I'm also planning to allow the water to have all of the bottom of the tank. I see alot of people section off a dry area but i'm going to go all the way with the false bottom.

[Devil_Boy]

The water doesnt have to be touching to wick, my watter is just above the eggcrate bottom and i have probaly 2nches of gravel and now it works great, a little bit of my dirt near my angle pieces was in the water and it does wick up and make it a soppy mess but it doesnt wick through the hole tank, although on a smaller setup it might.

my hole tank is water its not sectioned off, doing that can create problems if one of your 'retaining walls' leaks it could fill the hole "dirt side" of the tank full of water.

my little lake is made by angleing eggcrate into the water, but i cut seperate pieces to do it i never angled the hole big piece, i then made sure everything would fit and look good. Then i silconed screen to the eggcrate, then silconed pebbles to the screen, so it looks pretty natural slope, plus it gives the frogs something to crawl out with.

[Rainfrog]

If you are going to pot your plants you should be ok. you dont want the soil to be a swamp but with potted plants you wont have to worry about root rot issues. one of the main purposes of the drainage layer is to keep the roots of your plants from staying too wet and rotting. I would keep your water level lower than normal to help prevent excess moisture in the soil standard is 1/2 in. with no drainage layer I would go a full inch of space between the water table and the false bottom.

[Waterkeeper]

That's good! i was planning to keep 1" clearance from the table to the bottom anyway... I got my eggcrate cut this morning and I'll put up some pics so far later on.