# What is the egg crate for when building a viv?



## skittlenips (Jun 22, 2016)

I have always wondered this but was too afraid to ask, what is the egg crate for in vivariums? Thanks guys!


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## flyfshrmn98 (Mar 23, 2012)

Acts as a false bottom to allow water to drain through the substrate and then separate the substrate from the water


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## skittlenips (Jun 22, 2016)

flyfshrmn98 said:


> Acts as a false bottom to allow water to drain through the substrate and then separate the substrate from the water


I thought that's what the clayballs were for? Do you put clayballs under it? And do you still put mesh between the layers? Thank you!


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## DunderBear (Feb 5, 2016)

skittlenips said:


> I thought that's what the clayballs were for? Do you put clayballs under it? And do you still put mesh between the layers? Thank you!




One or the other eggcrate or hydroballs. You still need mesh either way.


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## skittlenips (Jun 22, 2016)

DunderBear said:


> One or the other eggcrate or hydroballs. You still need mesh either way.


What method would you recommend?


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## DunderBear (Feb 5, 2016)

skittlenips said:


> What method would you recommend?




I haven't even completed my first viv so I wouldn't know, however I'm personally using hydroballs once I'm more experienced I'll hopefully transfer over. Hydroballs are easy cause you just dump em in and even it out. Meanwhile egg crate requires a little bit of work, but is definitely the cheaper option especially when it comes to larger tanks.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Both serve the same purpose - to give a little water a place to go in the bottom of the tank where it won't touch the substrate. Both clay balls and egg crate achieve this purpose. I prefer the egg crate (after having started with clay balls with my earlier builds). The main reason I like egg crate is that I can put a layer of fiberglass screen over it and put a bead of silicone all the way around it. This prevents the majority of the substrate layer from getting down into the drainage layer. This is especially important since I started using Turface All-Sport Pro with a layer of leaf litter instead of ABG mix for my substrate. The clay balls don't let me separate the drainage layer from the substrate as effectively. Egg crate isn't as pretty, but I fix this by painting everything I don't want to see with black paint 

Mark


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## skittlenips (Jun 22, 2016)

What do you cut the egg crate with? It seems like it would be hard to cut, and thank you so much for the help.


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## wikiwakawakawee (Jan 24, 2013)

I break every little piece with some pliers, not sure if thats how you're supposed to do it..


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## srrrio (May 12, 2007)

Hi Nick,

I have used both methods.My favorite of the moment is Growstone which is lighter then the clay balls and is irregularly shaped so you can create slopes and hills easily. If I am doing a larger tank I often use 2" matala/filter media to further reduce weight and is really easy to work with.


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## spdybee (May 24, 2015)

skittlenips said:


> What do you cut the egg crate with? It seems like it would be hard to cut, and thank you so much for the help.


I use Diagonal cutters to snip each section.


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## Ebowww (Jun 25, 2016)

This is actually a great question, I'm so glad you asked it.

I had a follow-up question. How do experienced builders support the egg crate at the bottom? For Longer tanks, I imagine the weight of the substrate and plants / bark gets pretty heavy and might cause bending / snapping towards the middle of the tank?

Eric


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## Rusty_Shackleford (Sep 2, 2010)

Ebowww said:


> This is actually a great question, I'm so glad you asked it.
> 
> I had a follow-up question. How do experienced builders support the egg crate at the bottom? For Longer tanks, I imagine the weight of the substrate and plants / bark gets pretty heavy and might cause bending / snapping towards the middle of the tank?
> 
> Eric


I use pvc pipe as a support. I zip tie it to the egg crate to hold it in place. Make sure you have more than just support at the corners and in the middle to distribute the weight evenly. It's not that hard to build and it's surprisingly strong. 
That said I prefer a drainage layer as opposed to this false bottom. If microfauna fall through into the water they can climb out on leca or hydroton or whatever you're using. Drainage layers weigh more, but when or how frequently would you ever move a dart tank?


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## Gibbs.JP (Feb 16, 2016)

Ebowww said:


> This is actually a great question, I'm so glad you asked it.
> 
> I had a follow-up question. How do experienced builders support the egg crate at the bottom? For Longer tanks, I imagine the weight of the substrate and plants / bark gets pretty heavy and might cause bending / snapping towards the middle of the tank?
> 
> Eric


This is how I did the egg crate on my 100g tank. Hopefully it shows enough to answer some questions.


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## waterbed fred (Jan 10, 2010)

I use a Jigsaw with a fine wood cutting blade to cut it. it cuts it real clean.


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## Fingolfin (Jan 31, 2016)

I use a tin snips 

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk


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## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

Encyclia said:


> The main reason I like egg crate is that I can put a layer of fiberglass screen over it and *put a bead of silicone all the way around it*.
> Mark


Why have I never done this before! I always just made the screen slightly to big and pushed it up around the edges. This is a much better idea.


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## mark c (Jun 17, 2010)

I only use egg crate for what it is designed for, and what it does best: as a light diffuser. You can set it on top of your tank and it directs the light down to the plants. 

You can simultaneously use it to set the height of your bulb (jungle dawn, et. al.) above the tank, to help adjust the temperatures. I make a small frame using tie wraps (just like you would make a false bottom) that holds a T5 bulb fixture to just the right height. Temperatures can be dialed in by making the frame higher or shorter.

Egg crate is a poor man's false bottom. Some drawbacks:
-There have been posts where a frog gets down below it. 
-It does not wick the reservoir water back up into the substrate at all. 
-If springtails get down there, they don't get back up.
-It looks ugly. I've seen people cover the bottom with a gravel façade, or with black fabric (I do this), but then how do you know a frog did not get below the egg crate?

IMHO: Use egg crate for what it was intended, and use the LECA or other clay-type media for a false bottom.


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## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

mark c said:


> I only use egg crate for what it is designed for, and what it does best: as a light diffuser. You can set it on top of your tank and it directs the light down to the plants.
> 
> You can simultaneously use it to set the height of your bulb (jungle dawn, et. al.) above the tank, to help adjust the temperatures. I make a small frame using tie wraps (just like you would make a false bottom) that holds a T5 bulb fixture to just the right height. Temperatures can be dialed in by making the frame higher or shorter.
> 
> ...



I disagree with most of this, honestly. 

1) Frogs will only get below it if it's poorly constructed, (and if you don't use the super handy trick I just learned from Encyclia of siliconing the mesh divider screen to the sides of your tank!) I'm not saying it won't happen, my first auratus viv almost a decade back was a disaster, I had frogs below my false bottom, but that's because of a pump placement issue, not the false bottom. It's just as easy for frogs to get into a clay/leca area as it is an egg crate false bottom. But a properly constructed egg-crate false bottom should never have this issue. 

2) Why would you want it to wick water back up into the substrate. That sounds like a recipe for a soggy, moldy, decaying, anaerobic substrate disaster if you ask me. I mist once a day currently, for not very long, and my substrate stays just fine, even with a 2 inch ventilation strip at the top of my viv. None of my substrate is in contact with my egg-crate false bottom, and it does not need to be. 


3) Yes springtails can easily get back up. They can literally walk on water, it's pretty easy for them to migrate back up into the substrate along the pvc pipes. In fact, done properly, an eggcrate false bottom can easily act as a refugium for them. I used to regularly watch my huge population of false-bottom springtails spend the day in the false bottom floating on the water, then every night migrate back up into the substrate. There's even a thread talking about how they can do it somewhere here on Dendroboard.

4)It only looks ugly if you don't cover the bottom up with contact paper or some other sort of visual barrier. Even then, I don't find them to be much uglier than seeing a bunch of gravel/clay balls at the bottom. I count my frogs regularly, as everyone should, I'll know pretty quick if one goes missing. Also, leaving one side of the bottom uncovered is a good way to be able to check the water level and to be able to see into the false bottom to check if a resident is in there. 


I love egg crate false bottoms. They're lighter, cleaner, massively cheaper, they hold more water which means you have to drain less often, easier to 'scape' and will hold that scape forever, unlike gravel or clay balls which settle over time. The only tanks I use gravel or clay balls on are small tanks where the weight or time issue is negligent. Anything bigger than about a 12x12 base I'll use egg crating.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Encyclia said:


> The main reason I like egg crate is that I can put a layer of fiberglass screen over it and put a bead of silicone all the way around it.


I do this as well. I found that if the screening is sealed in this way there isn't anyway for a tadpole etc to get under the falsebottom as its closed off. 

I further include a bulkhead into the false bottom set so there is about a 1/2 to one inch gap between the top of the water and the bottom of the false bottom. This not only prevents the substrate from ever becoming too water logged but it provides a refugia where springtails can breed without heavy predation pressure and as noted above, they do migrate back up into the substrate layer. I have sufficient roots growing through the mesh to facilitate an easy migration up and down. 

some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

TarantulaGuy said:


> even with a 2 inch ventilation strip at the top of my viv. None of my substrate is in contact with my egg-crate false bottom, and it does not need to be.


The vents on my 20 gallon verticals are 4 inch wide ... and they only get misted once/day. 

some comments 

Ed


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## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

Ed said:


> The vents on my 20 gallon verticals are 4 inch wide ... and they only get misted once/day.
> 
> some comments
> 
> Ed


I keep thinking about making a bigger vent for my big viv, someday I probably will. But at close to 36" long, the vent still gets a fair bit of air moving through it, maybe not as much as is ideal though. But, I'll try not to hijack the thread anymore with a venting discussion


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## DragonSpirit1185 (Dec 6, 2010)

I like egg crate because it can displace much more water. The hydrobals take up so much space you lose a lot of space where water can go. Hydroballs also make the tanks really heavy. 

Some use pipes as legs but I find using the egg crate as legs is much better so you don't have to worry about the pipes filling up even if you notch them. 

Something I do different is my substrate barrier is A/C filter foam. Fiberglass screen lets wayyyy too much microfauna fall into your drainage layer. I've taken apart vivs to find draowned dwarf white isopods and springtails covering the entire surface of the water and they had no way to get back up into the soil. 
You can get the foam pieces for 99 cents at Walmart. It drains really well and doesn't let the microfauna fall through. 
Another substrate barrier you will see often used is weedblock/landscape fabric but not all of them are good cause some of them just don't drain very well at all. 

Eggcrate with egg crate as the legs method









A/C filter foam









The filter foam is rather new so it's longevity hasn't been tested but I have had some in one vivarium for like 3 years or so and it's still holding up great and still draining great.

Not trying to dismiss the tried and true methods, just letting you know my experiences and what I prefer.


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