# Attaching rocks to egg crate?



## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Hey guys, I was looking at some pictures of mountainous aquascapes and I have seen some crazy ones. It got me thinking. There is so much substrate being used when in reality it is not needed. If there were a way to make an egg crate riser and have the rocks attached to it, wouldn't it make it much more efficient. Also cover the egg crate with mesh and attach moss to it to make an illusion of a landscape. I'm probably going to try and do this once my battle with camallus worms end. Is there a way to attach rocks to egg crate? I highly doubt silicone will work


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

Kimchi24 said:


> Hey guys, I was looking at some pictures of mountainous aquascapes and I have seen some crazy ones. It got me thinking. There is so much substrate being used when in reality it is not needed. If there were a way to make an egg crate riser and have the rocks attached to it, wouldn't it make it much more efficient. Also cover the egg crate with mesh and attach moss to it to make an illusion of a landscape. I'm probably going to try and do this once my battle with camallus worms end. Is there a way to attach rocks to egg crate? I highly doubt silicone will work


You can just attach the rocks with aquarium safe glue. I think I'm understanding your idea but either way you're going to need substrate underneath the egg create and on top of it for things to grow properly (depending on the plants you choose). I've only ever seen people use egg crate in there tank when they are placing big stones and don't want the weight to be all on one area of the glass. I think it could be a pretty cool idea. Egg crate is super easy to work with for any specs.


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## Kurare (Oct 8, 2010)

Actually a lot of people use styrofoam for 3d background: the idea of this is to not create a void where you cannot reach into and clean. A planted tank only, i guess it could work, but if somehow waste were to collect back there and rot; it would be PITA to get too.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

I mean, technically this would be removable. Also for planted tanks, isn't waste not even siphoned up? I don't siphon the substrate unless I have to, like right now.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

generally you don't remove waste in planted tanks but there are times like when you have a lighter coloured sand and all the waste looks bad, then you would want to suck it out. It is much better to use gravel in planted tanks than sand for this reason, unless you use a darker sand which can be hard to find. I don't have to clean the waste much in my tank with darker sandblasting sand. But I think that is mostly because I have lots of bottom fish that stir it up and it ends up in the filter.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

I'm rethinking what I want to do and what has come to mind is an artificial slope made of egg crate covered in a mesh of moss. Thus creating an illusion of a high substrate hill without using that much substrate.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Just be sure you CAN get underneath to clean up. There will be an amazing amount of detritus underneath a 'hollow' slope like that, given some time, if I'm understanding what you have in mind clearly. 

Stuff will fall through the moss and eggcrate and any mesh underlayment, and accumulate. It won't be eaten by cleanup crew such as snails because they won't be able to get in there, I'd think.. and if they do get in they'll not likely get out, and they'd leave their own waste in place of what they eat.

Same deal with making sure a background does not have a void behind it. Very hard to get into such a void to clean, and algaes and detritus can build up to surprising levels in such a space. Dead bits of plant leaves, dead roots, waste from animals, it can all build up in such spaces without a current to move it around or you siphoning it out.

If you only want mosses, it might work, maybe.

What about using some larger rocks to 'fill in' some of that height you want ? You'd need less substrate than you'd need to build the slope entirely from substrate, and you can glue or silicone a piece of glass or even a row of rocks/pebbles in place to provide a support to hold back the slope.. a retaining wall, to stop the rocks, pebbles and substrate from sliding forward and slowly leveling out, which is the usual problem when you try to build a hill with substrate.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

i also heard i can do the same thing with pantyhose filled with gravel and then topped off with the desired substrate. I'm thinking of going this route because the one rock i want to work with will be pretty big


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## Kurare (Oct 8, 2010)

Panty hose off you haven't seen in movies rips mad easy. Gluck with that. Tulle ftw.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

what material would be better? ive seen videos of people grabbing sacs of used gravel to make slopes. i want to do that simply because i dont want to have to buy a huge amount of substrate considering black flourite sand is real expensive and i have all this random gravel laying around


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