how to build up a land part without using silicone or just using gravel? hygroballs?

[gbyrne]

so I am wanting to build a half land half water tank for firebelly toads in my 29gallon. Ideally I would like to have land on both sides with a "stream" in the middle. I would like to build a rock wall on each side of the stream just by stacking larger rocks. but my question is would hygroballs behind the walls make my water very dirty? Im wondering how to go about filling up the water space with something so I can put land on top. do hygroballs go bad? I do not want to silicone anything because I like to rearrange my tank ever so often. anybody have any ideas? I have been looking on youtube for some ideas but I can't find anything really besides this How to setup a naturalistic vivarium pt1 - YouTube and he doesn't really show it completed with the water running.

[DonLisk]

Many people use cork flats and cut to make the walls/dividers for the water area. I used gravel as the drainage layer and held back the higher area of rocks (drainage layer under the substrate) with larger rocks.
You can cut eggrate in as a divider and use screen material around the eggcrate to hold back the drainage stones or hydroballs.

Hydroballs will initially give you dirty water as will the water draining through the substrate, at least for a while. It will clear up over time.

[gbyrne]

how often would hydroballs need to be replaced? I asked someone at petsmart about them and he said he wasn't too sure about them but he thought they would quickly mold. what would be the best substrate be to put on top of whatever I use and how often would it need to be changed?

[Dizzl]

I have never heard of hydroballs getting moldy before. Using gravel would be cheaper! I figured that out the hard way after spending $30 on hydroballs to not have enough for what I was setting up. So I bought a big bag of large gravel to mix with them to finish it off.

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