# Hardscape advice



## Fisheye (Jan 13, 2015)

Big Al's Scarborough had some amazing and huge (maybe Malaysian?)driftwood yesterday so I picked up an extra large piece (49.95)

I'm stuffing it into a 20 long and am wondering...is it imperative to put styrofoam down first? The piece weighs 13 lbs and will run almost the length of the tank.

J


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## iamaloner (Dec 20, 2014)

Nah you dont have to if you dont want
Is it going on rest on any substrate?

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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

To be safe you can cut some eggcrate and place it under where it will make contact with the glass. Then cover the eggcrate with substrate


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## Guppymen (Jun 5, 2010)

You don't have to if you don't want to:
By applying Archimedes principle in Physics : 
"When a body is partly or totally immersed in a fluid there is an upthrust that is equal to the weight of fluid displaced."
Therefore once the driftwood is in water, the apparent weight of the driftwood is greatly reduced by the weight of the volume of the water it displaced.
Enjoy the decoration of your new setup!!


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## Fisheye (Jan 13, 2015)

Thanks so very much for the info, input and bonus physics!

Just wondering tho...why would/should one put down eggcrate first if adding height is not an issue. Does this layer reduce pressure points? Is it to not do something to the bottom glass? I always see amazing aquascapers use materials prior to hardscape but have never done so myself. Then again, I've never created an elaborate hardscape.

Again, I very much appreciate the replies.


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## Guppymen (Jun 5, 2010)

Two main reasons:
1) to distribute (spread out) the weight of object on top,
2) especially for cichlids tank , they like to dig, with the eggcrate in place, they 
won't be able to dig right to the bottom, this will prevent the objects(rocks) 
on top from collapsing.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

The main reason to put something underneath heavy objects is less about weight and more about point loading. One grain of gravel can create a point load sufficient to break the bottom. This is one of the reasons the bottoms are lifted with an external bottom frame, so, no point load is created by placing a tank on a hard surface that has a single grain of grave. This goes back to the days when the first all glass aquariums were produced.Customers were breaking the bottoms, so a wood frame was added to lift the base off of the surface. This later became plastic and evolved into the frames we see today.


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