This was emailed to me by a fellow aquarist after having difficulties with the gibbiceps digging up the plants in my display tank. Reproduced here in its entirety with permission of the author – Amerce.
“Actually I managed to rig something a little bit cheaper up for myself with items I had left over or had squirreled away.
I had some peat left over from my killifish breeding pots (sterilized in the microwave), I had some aquarium sand (£2+ for a 3 kg bag), some fine gravel left over from another aquarium and some plastic containers left over from various things (Ferrero rocher container, strawberry punnet container etc. I’d punched some holes in the container bottom beforehand), the most expensive part was buying the plants and the plant rooter granules.
I lined the bottom of the containers with some peat, sprinkled some of the root granules and then tied up the plants (using the lead that java sent me), once I had decided where all the plants were going I then used the wet sand to firmly place the plants in the container (I’d washed the sand earlier and it was still a bit moist) the sand acted like putty and was easy to shape and mould around the plant roots, then I sprinkled the gravel over everything to make sure the sand and plants didn’t float up once it was placed in the tank, and because the containers had been punched before the water soaked in to the base of the container and gradually filled it and it sank nicely without loosing the plant, soil, or sand.
This way the undergravel isn’t bunged up with roots from the plants and you can take out the containers at any time to do plant maintenance and also move the container where ever you want without upsetting the plants too much.”
So this Christmas, save those Ferrero rocher containers, and recycle them, and save them from landfill!
