# Substrate Support Advice For Banking



## StevieD (Jun 17, 2017)

Love the idea of cutting up a solo cup, I am setting up a planted tank for the first time and I had also seen the supports used in The Green Machine. I was wondering what I could use, this a great idea!


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## milesm (Apr 4, 2006)

get some black colorplast. it is basically corrugated plastic sheets. paid about $7 for a 2x3 sheet at home depot.


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## StevieD (Jun 17, 2017)

milesm said:


> get some black colorplast. it is basically corrugated plastic sheets. paid about $7 for a 2x3 sheet at home depot.


Cheap alternative for sure, I figured there would be something of this sort but was not sure where I would look.

Great tip and thanks for the heads up!


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## Colin Wrexham (Mar 24, 2017)

A little trick i use is bury small pebbles or stones underneath in a similar colour to your subtrate. 
Or small strips of lino flooring, thin perspex. All works 😉

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 4, 2008)

Slightly off topic, but how did you get those strange patterns in your brown algae (most likely diatoms?) on the glass?


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

Darkblade48 said:


> Slightly off topic, but how did you get those strange patterns in your brown algae (most likely diatoms?) on the glass?


Nerite Snails, that is their teeth marks where they have scraped the algae from the glass for me. If they make enough passes they can clear it by about 95% actually, which is why Nerite Snails in particular are a must in all my aquariums they save me time. That algae however is odd, sometimes turns a shade of red and is unidentified...sometimes looks close to coralline algae.


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

*I tried adding more of my cup supports lower in the incline but this did not work, the problem I keep having is not that the entire mass moves outward but rather the top layer of aquasoil sheds itself off the cheaper base layer of substrate. I am not sure if this is purely the side effect of having a bunch of shrimp in there without establishing a carpet to hold the substrate but this is discouraging me from building this tank.* 
















*

I am going to try some clear plastic supports on the side, I think I may be trying to push too much of an incline in the front. It may turn out for this particular hardscape I need to do a dry start or at least get a carpet going in the front without the shrimp.*


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## JonRon (Jun 6, 2017)

Ground covering plants will help also. I have a very high backwall, more then half my tank so 18cm tall and the front is 4cm. I used something like what James at TheGreenMachine used but mine was solid with no gaps in the middle of the plastic. 

With that being said, you will always have an avalanche with out ground covering plants to hold the Substrate.


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

Thanks for your input, any thoughts on the shrimp constantly picking at the substrate on inclines? 

Also I am finding that using plastic cups are not a good support solution UNLESS you cut the tip lip ridge off the cups. That curled piece of plastic seems to hold air and they want to float.


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## JonRon (Jun 6, 2017)

Oh, that Bugs the Sh** out of me, even with the MTS dragging their Shells across the sand! All I do is vac the dirt pebbles that is in the sand, then push the sand back up, to make the incline again, and do it all over again the next week or so. I have a few berried Amano Shrimp so you can imagine the mess that they make.


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

I will never put MTS in a planted tank, learnt that before I even made that mistake lol.


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

*I have been playing with this some more, what I decided to try in the front and left side was to cover the Aquasoil with more Eco-Complete...which is kind of opposite what I started as my plan. Now it goes from top to base layer Eco-Complete>AquaSoil>Eco-Complete>Black Gravel. You can see the right side does not have an Eco-Complete cap, if this works I will do the right side of the tank too.*


















*I made sure to leave a dip at the end of the incline by the glass as a buffer to allow tumble, I think as the RCS pick out the balls of Aquasoil they will tumble down the incline and end up in the buffer dip. As this piles against the glass (including possibly tiny pieces of Eco-Complete) I will use my vac during water changes to clear the buffer zone...eventually this process should stop. I will report back with my results!*


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## doylecolmdoyle (Sep 22, 2015)

I just use clear plastic sheet cut into small strips, the plastic is about 2mm thick, I push it about 1cm below the top of the substrate, some has become exposed but being clear and very thin its hard to see, I also have established a carpet to help hold the soil and grows over the exposed plastic supports, so far I have kept the big slope in place.

IMG_9622 by Colm Doyle, on Flickr

IMG_9807 by Colm Doyle, on Flickr


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