Drainage System

[JHansson514]

I am about to embark on my first attempt at a planted tank for my White's Tree Frog. It is a 75G tank and I've been working on a background for about a year. Frustration at the root of my procrastination. Anyways... The more reading I do, I am seeing that it is crucial to have some sort of drainage system for the tank. My question is what is the best solution. False bottom or a drainage layer (I see LECA is commonly recommended)?

[thadmy]

I used LECA in my first tank and its a 30 gallon vertical so not as large as yours. I have a small pool where I just made the land side up higher than the water side to make a small drainage pool so that I can siphon out the water 2x a week and replace it with clean water so my frogs have water...

Using a false bottom works well if you plan on having a water feature i.e. a water fall, stream or large pool so that you can have a place for the pump and so forth.

If you don't plan on moving the tank at all once its set up then choose whichever you like but I would go with a false bottom, reason I say that is because of the extra weight that is going to be added by the LECA. I have about 2-3 inches of LECA in mine but I have a small bottom, even though LECA is light weight you'll need a bunch of it to cover the bottom of your tank with enough space to hold water and second it will add more weight. Just in case for an unseen circumstance you need to move the tank it will be lighter.

Thad

[DonLisk]

I like the Leca due to weight and the water seems to evaporate quickly compared to having a eggcrate drainage area.

1 1/2 to 2 inch deep is usually enough and I believe the deeper it is the fast evap you have.
My last RETF tank had 3 inches and never had water to siphon off.

As Thad stated, if your planning a water feature, eggcrate is the way to go.

[JHansson514]

Thank you Thad and Don, that's helpful. Don, this may be a silly question, but if you use LECA and have the main substrate on top, how would you siphon off water? Do you have to have a drainage pool like Thad does?

[DonLisk]

You can create an area with large stones to siphon from as I did with the viv I added to my albums today, or I just keep an area where I can lift the substrate slightly with some overlapping screen material and stick the hose in there. I usually do this in a corner and cover it with a large accent item.