Why are false bottoms so tall?
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Taller false bottoms mainly mean more room for error.
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I know that in a couple of my tanks that I have chosen to have a waterfall in, I had to make a taller false bottom so that the water level woould be above pump and still have a bit of clearance from top of water to substrate.
because then it's just as tall, and heavier...
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Sure, but it takes a lot less time for the water level to rise to 1" than it does to hit 3+" and this isnt much of an issue if the tank is drilled but if you have to hand empty it its a pain
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You can not drill a tank too close to the bottom you have to come up 1/2-3/4" or risk cracking. You end up with at least a 1.5" drainage layer. Most people do the egg crate false bottoms because they want to have a water area and les than 1" almost completly defeats the point.
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I agree. Having less than 1-1.25 of water defeats the purpose. I end us usually with 1.5-2" of egg crate and it's normally filled up 2/3 high.
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i live at the north pole (AKA utah) and i heat my tanks to keep them above 68 at night for 7-8 months out of the year. the 2" of water works as a great heat generator for the viv with an aquarium heater in the water. anything under 1" wouldnt cover the heater
You also want an air gap between the bottom of the false bottom and the top of the water in the false bottom as this prevents excess water from being wicked up into the substrate. Excessive water in the substrate can not only affect the health of the plants but the health of the frogs.
Ed
Ed
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Darn , it almost worked!
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I made a 1 inch false bottom in one of my 40 breeder verts that I am setting up for my cresteds. The soul purpose for a small false bottom, in my case anyway, is so I can keep like 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of water under the substrate to try and keep the humidity a tad more steady than spraying every so often. Different size false bottoms are all built for different purposes.
I don't really get this post....... You can build your false bottom as high or low as you want/need it for your application. Whether your false bottom is 1 inch or 6 inches it has no different affects on your habitat or inhabitants as long as it is built right, as Ed has explained the air gap.
In my mind the soul purpose of a false bottom with eggcrate or something similar is a cheap way to keep the weight of you tank down. I am personally starting to get into using epiweb instead, but its a bit pricy compared to eggcrate. Other ways include gravel and leca or featherlite. Which ever way you choose to go there is not a right or a wrong way as long as you build it properly. All of these methods have been proven. It is souly a preference of the builder, thats all.
I don't really get this post....... You can build your false bottom as high or low as you want/need it for your application. Whether your false bottom is 1 inch or 6 inches it has no different affects on your habitat or inhabitants as long as it is built right, as Ed has explained the air gap.
In my mind the soul purpose of a false bottom with eggcrate or something similar is a cheap way to keep the weight of you tank down. I am personally starting to get into using epiweb instead, but its a bit pricy compared to eggcrate. Other ways include gravel and leca or featherlite. Which ever way you choose to go there is not a right or a wrong way as long as you build it properly. All of these methods have been proven. It is souly a preference of the builder, thats all.
And so you dont drown your frogs...
And how does it make it lighter? its still water, dirt, plants, background... its just as heavy...false bottom or not...
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It's lighter because you don't have the weight of stones. If an inch with the false bottom held a liter of water it may take 2 or 3 inches of stone instead to hold the same volume of water since space is being taken up by the stones themselves (obviously the numbers are just being made up and the relationship is what matters).
stones count as a false bottom... a false bottom is to prevemt it from becoming a swamp... and to raise humidity, and ponds, rivers, etc...
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regardless of what you call a stone bottom what I said stands...
If you use the pvc and eggcrate false bottom... the weight is significantly less than a stone or leca false bottom.. If you think about it, stone and leca are heavier than water so simply by not using stone or leca for the "drainage" layer, you decrease the weight compared to a tank where those are used... water while heavy is still lighter than stone... I can pick up and carry my 20 gallon enclosures with false bottoms which is something I certainly wouldn't be able to do if I used gravel or Leca for the drainage later (at least without a hernia).
Stone drainage layers while easy to set up suffer from a couple of other issues when compared to a false bottom set up with a air gap... sooner or layer substrate ends up contacting the water in the drainage layer which then wicks water up into the substrate. An air gap under a eggcrate false bottom prevents this from happening while allowing the substrate to drain freely and prevents the substrate from becoming saturated which leads to anaerobic conditions.
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With an eggcrate false bottom you can significantly decrease the weight if you need to move it around by draining the water. While you can still drain the water out of a leca layer, the leca is still there and it's still adding weight that would have otherwise been absent in an eggcrate false bottom.
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