Plastic Egg Crates

[froghobbiest]

Ok for those of you that make a false bottom out of plastic egg crate where do you get them?Im having trouble finding them. Along with the mesh what kind do you use?

[UncleChester]

Home Depot should have it, it's used in ceiling lighting fixtures but at my local store it's kept in with the sheets of plywood, drywall, and other large flat things.

I'm new to false bottoms, but just made my first today (over LECA) using nylon screen mesh found on windows. Black landscaping fabric also seems to be popular. I don't know if one is better (landscaping fabric has smaller 'holes'), but you may have an easier time finding an appropriate sized piece of window screening. Mine was recycled from an old window.

[froghobbiest]

Cool thanks. Im still debatin on using them but I need to kno where to go just in case.Im thinking about using acrylic sheets to make a false bottom and silicone it with little holes at the bottom to drain water and have another piece leading from the pump to make a creek...my idea is perect but i gotta make sure what ima use gon be ok. Thanks for your help

[John]

In the US it is sold in the lighting department at Home Depot - the folks at home depot usually don't know what you mean when you say egg crate. It's not cheap. I was originally going to build all my dart frog tanks with it but frankly it's rather unsightly and I ended up just using it for temporary housing and for raising dart frog tadpoles and such. I much prefer LECA and other similar materials (like featherlite which Black Jungle sells). However, the plastic egg crate is the lightest material of all of these so there is a trade off. If you can find black plastic egg crate, that would be ideal but it's very hard to come by and HD doesn't sell it in black, just white.

[SludgeMunkey]

It can be found in any Do It Yourself store and online. To make your search easier, the trade name of the product is "flourescent lighting diffuser" and "drop ceiling diffuser". More often than not it is on the shelves where drop ceilling tiles and hardware are kept. ( That's that white board they use in office blocks and the like.)
Do not use the chromed version, it is toxic to amphibians.

[froghobbiest]

thanks guys. I really didnt know any other name it would be under and im just tryin to price everything for my project ya know. Thanks alot!