[jcgd]

Well, I've been trying to figure out how I can have an area of sand in the front of my tank but I don't want to use rocks as a divider, or have to deal with the colours mixing. So I found this thread:

Fake sand bed

For reef setups it doesn't actually seem like a good idea (coraline growth) but for a beach area it could be perfect. All you have to do is make a mold, but use cardboard dividers to shape it to the foreground you want. Once you pop it from the mold you can just place it over your substrate. It would be a solid piece, but if gravel or whatever gets on it you just lift it up and clean it off. No more sucking up sand or even worrying about mixing your substrates. And nothing can grow in it. If it ever gets algae or isn't the perfect, photo worthy colour you can just pull it out, clean it and set it back in.

It would also work well for a Discus tank, etc. where you want sand but prefer the ease of maintenance of a bare bottom tank.

Thoughts?

 

[shrimpNewbie]

That is awesome, couldn't see it not working for our application, I would try it though im no fan of the color

 

[HX67]

I know a guy that did a resin-coralsand bottom to his 100+ gallon reef.

He poured the epoxy resin straight into the tank, onto levelled sandbed.

It worked great-untill it started warping upwars from the corners and got water and detritus under it. From then on he had trouble with nitrates and nitrites in the tank.

In a freshwater tank it might not be a big problem, though. But a warped sand cookie is not very pretty. If this can be avoided, I see no problems with it.