drainage question

[gillenws]

alright so i've seen some builds in here where someone builds up a landscape with egg crate and GS, has a stream or waterfall ending in a pond, and has a false bottom below. my question is: if the ultimate end of the water is the pond, is this drainage sufficient? will the excess water from the substrate over the GS drain to the pond as well and not get too wet? the top sticky on this forum page is a good example. thanks in advance for the help

-will

[paintballislife]

From what i have gathered, if the stream is running on GS and dumps into a pond, if you have pea gravel or leca balls as a bottom layer your fine. I have 2 inches of water right now in mine and am working on a stream.

[gillenws]

right so the stream would be separated from the general substrate, but it seems like some people have a false bottom for drainage under their entire land area.

this link makes it kinda sound like the drainage needs to be under all of the land:
Josh’s Frogs How-To Guides Blog Archive Terrarium Construction

[WarrenPaul]

Ok. The way I have been doing this is much simpler. You completely separate the water and land sections with a plexiglass divider, the false bottom is for soil drainage. You could viably have a water section, and a FB that lifted above the entire water table, but that would result in a substrate that is a very good distance from the bottom of the tank and a lot of wasted space...

[gillenws]

i understand what you're saying... but then for the land mass if you use GS to build up a landscape how is the water supposed to make it down into a false bottom? (see first sticky on this forum page... his landscape build is cage of eggcrate covered in GS)

[paintballislife]

you dont need to gs everything if you use substrate

[WarrenPaul]

Yea, that method is a little different, and if you like it I highly recommend it, sustaining plant life may require a little more expertise by that method.

Most people use an eggcrate frame and GS for a backdrop, or rocks- decoration. My personal preference is to use a section of my tank to hold a mix of coco fiber, sand, gravel, dried leaves (some crushed up etc.), and various other substances in order to create a substrate that sustains plant life, as well as beneficial bacteria and little critters. A false bottom is necessary for such a setup as it will allow proper soil drainage and prevent substrate rot, as well as the rot of everything in the substrate

[seahawksfan_74]

My viv that you referenced at the start of this thread has no substrate other then the planters that I made out of GS. All of my flowing water is supposed to go over gravel that is siliconed to the GS. The coco bark isn't supposed to touch the stream or pond. Where it is it is causing problems right now and I need to seperate them. As long as the substrate or you use dosen't wick water where it is near the water you should be fine.Also I have holes in the backs of my planters through the egg create to allow drainage from them. I also would have not covered all the egg create in foam if I had a larger footprint, instead opting for screen covering the egg create and substrate over that. I haven't used leca balls at all again due to the small footprint. My water circulates well just using the eggreate. I hope this helps.

[gillenws]

yes thanks to both of you that helps a lot. i was under the impression that the coco bark covering the ground would be moist also due to the high humidity and require drainage. i started my build last night and made a frame much like yours (seahawksfan) out of eggcrate on top of a false bottom. on top of the eggcrate i put screen which ended up not making the landscape too flat. i am going to be putting substrate directly on the screen and using various thicknesses as opposed to using GS. i will post some pics of it later.