I have a potentially odd or dumb question:

I was wondering if anyone had any idea on the strength or how much weight it (eggcrate) can support?

Don't worry, I can explain.
I have posted in here a few times I think about my Leopard frog (possibly southern) and her habitat. She used to be in a 20 gallon long tank but this past October I finally got a 40 gallon (the entire ZooMed 40 gallon aquatic turtle kit to be exact) set up for her. She is doing really well and is active. The set up now is basically a large layer of hydroballs under a layer of gravel for the land side, and a gravel bottomed water area. It's about half and half with a canister filter and water heater on the water side.

( The lights will come on in a few hours so I will upload a current image then)


Now why I'm asking about eggcrate:
I have a new design for a tank layout, one that makes the land area more like a dock-looking structure allowing for more swimming area. I was hoping to make it out of some eggcrate, hydroballs, and plastic craft mesh; putting hyrohydrob in the gaps in the eggcrate, and then super gluing the craft mesh on top and bottom. There would be some gravel substrate on top of this shelf and, depending on how much support it may need for the extra weight, 4 or more support structures underneath. It would not need to be a lot of gravel, just enough for her to move around as she sees fit to make hills and valleys. I'm thinking of providing a cork bark hide for shelter and some plants (her favorite seems to be pothos) that can grow hydroponically for additional cover. The water will also be planted for more cover.

TL;DR I want to know how much extra support I may have to provide, if any, to this eggcrate dock.


I have seen builds that use eggcrate as scaffolding, and then I believe they use Great Stuff or in a similar product on the egg crate and then sculpt it when it dries. I do like how these builds look after they're all set up, I currently don't think I could make something like that work given my current physical/spatial limitations and living situation. I only have access to some pretty basic hand tools as well.



I'm sorry if there's any typos, I use speech to text a lot to help me type things, and sometimes is there is wacky errors I don't notice when I read through it quick. Please ask me any questions and I will attempt to clarify anything that might seem a bit strange. I can also provide a rough sketch of what I was thinking for this dock idea.

Thanks!