Egg Crates?

[Sparty00]

I see some posts or suggestions for placing LR on Egg Crates for extra stability.

Anyone know where you can find these plastics egg crates?

What size PVC do you use for legs?

Thanks !

 

[ReefDreamz]

You can find white egg crate in the drop ceiling section at lowes.

 

[Fuzzy Yarbles]

they are used in commercial flourescent light fixtures home depot or lowes should have them.

 

[Impala1964]

you can also try starboard try a search on it

 

[silverwolf72]

eggcrate or light diffuser

 

[Sparty00]

Great Thanks for the suggestions guys !!

One more question what do you recommend for the legs to hold up egg crates?

How do you attach to the egg crates?

 

[nib420247]

if you just need a few pieces for under the live rock and aren't trying to use it for a top, you could get a few milk crates and use that.....but make sure there clean.

 

[blackheart]

just be careful if you use egg crate all over the bottom of your tank the sand bed wont be able to be stired up and will really not surve its porpuse if i where you which i am not i would just put it under the live rock and use the least amount as possible. If sand cant get stired some bad stuff builds up in there

good luck

 

[ddm_aet]

I might be wrong, but isn't the point of a dsb to create an area of low oxygen for denitrifying bacteria to grow. So you do not want creatures to stir up the dsb or at least the deepest part of it.

One of the problems when placing rock is you can form pockets for nitrogen oxide to build up in. Which sand bed sifters can release into the tank. Though having enough water circulation should exhaust all the toxins into the air. Another reason for having ph's break the surface to create gas exchange.

I did alot of research on this when revamping my 75.

What i came up with and I'm no expert, but it is working fine so far was.

I took eggcrate a little bit smaller then the tank foot print (so that you couldn't see it through the side of the tank). Then attached 1 1/2 or 2" x 2 1/2" long pvc legs to it 12" on center both ways. This created a platform 3" above the bottom of the tank. I then filled the tank with 3" of sand covering the eggcrate. On top of that i put my rock (I think it was about 150 pounds worth) then i put another 2" of sand. This gave me a total of about 5".

I know this topic was just on support structures and i went a little further explaining what i did, but thats my 2 cents.

 

[blackheart]

if you do not have any movement through your sand bed deep or not then nitrogen will build up in the sand bed. If these bubbles are not regularly allowed to excape then they will cause a large bubble if this gets out of your sand bed it WILL cause problems and poison your tank ........water motion is not enough to completely exaust this from your sand bed

 

[Sparty00]

I appreciate all the suggestions, my plan was to put this structure under the base rocks to provide more stability, as I do not want fish or invertebrates to cause a rock slide.

Thanks again !

 

[virginiadiver69]

Keep in mind you will not be able to keep any burrowing type fish, Gobies, Jaw-fish etc. For this reason I built a grid made of 1/2 " PVC. It looked like the egg-crate(light diffuser) on steroids. I made the openings about 3"square. This gave a enough support for my base rocks but large enough openings for any burrowing fish. I did much like ddm_aet suggested by raising my "grid" up onto legs that were about 3" high and adding about 4" of sand. At first I only added just enough sand to cover but with water movement the grid soon became exposed in some arias, so I added another 1/2" or so.