I have a 125 gallon tank and have some hefty pieces of rock with sand in the tank. I was reading about people putting egg crate down before setting the rock 'n such to help disperse the weight on the bottom of the tank. My question is just how much rock weight do you think it would be able to handle? I'm not too sure if it's 1/2" thick or 3/4" thick glass as I am not at home right now, but wanted to post the question before I forget. I want to get more rock to create for caves for my africans.
its all about pressure points and weight distribution
the following weights are just as examples
if you have 800 lbs of flat rocks sitting in your tank with neoprene pads (mouse pads) and egg creat under them (evenly distributing the weight across the bottom of the tank aka no pressure points) you are set...
but if you took that same tank and put a 20lb flatrock resting on a small pebble inside of it... theres a good chance the bottom of the tank may blow out/crack...
depending on the type/shape of rock you use.. my guess is anywhere between 50-150 lbs should do the trick.. just be sure to spread the weight out as much as you can.. and be careful how you stack stuff.. water changes/earthquakes/fish can and have knocked over piles of rocks..
You could not fit enough rock in the tank to break out the bottom, but you could drop a small one to do just that.
I do not use egg crate. I place my bottom tier rocks right on the glass..does not stop the lil buggers from trying to dig under them..but they can dig to the glass anywhere, and my rockwork will not shift, nor fall.
Something about the look of the dug up areas, with egg crate showing..Ughh.
No science to back it up, but my gut tells me if crud can get to inaccessible places, it will.
Question to egg crate users:
When you pulled a tank down, was there debris in all those little pockets?? Just curious.
Thanks for the replies. I was thinking of adding egg crate, but that would be a project with my fish already in there, ugh. But after KaiserSousay's response and that video from joey020283 that makes me want to fill my tank up with nothing, but rock, heh.