# Substrate Hills



## james 3200 (Jan 23, 2006)

I am in the process of setting up a new tank and i want to get some hills into the aquascape.

Has anyone got any methods of using something to keep the substrate formed for the long term, i am sure i have seen it in the past..

Tank is 180G and i will be using an ADA substrate so parts of the hills are going to be pretty expansive

Any ideas?

Many thanks,
James


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

large rocks, tera cota plant pots, you can break them up and use the 1/2 of them like a dome.
Anything that won't alter the chemestry of your tank will be OK to use, but both of those methods work well.

Also, I have had some pretty extreme slopes in tanks and they don't move around that much.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Using ADA soil probably will allow you to make reasonably sloped hills and have them stay there. I have found that Soilmaster doesn't work well for hills - loaches and cory's will level them in SM as they constantly shift little areas of substrate.


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

The steepest slope I currently have is out of SMS, but I don't have any loaches or cory's, just some plecos and they only stay on the wood mostly.


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## bdement (Jun 4, 2007)

james 3200 said:


> Has anyone got any methods of using something to keep the substrate formed for the long term


As Hoppy and Goal alluded to, I think the best method is to not have any inhabitants that are likely to move the gravel around. When it's not disturbed, the gravel/sand/whatever may settle some over time, but your slopes will be preserved for the most part.


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## james 3200 (Jan 23, 2006)

Thanks very much everyone for the feedback,

The tank will have a few corys but only 5 as i have a group of adolfis which will go in there, the rest of the tank will be 6 Discus. I will probably add something under the hills just to give it that extra help, as they will be rolling up down in one place so would like to make sure that they keep the formation as the tank is getting setup for the long term really, tera cota pots sounds good, got some lying around i am sure 

James


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## plantkeeper (Apr 30, 2007)

Driftwood helds too if you can get a low enough piece. as goalcreas said, really you can use anything as long as it won't cause problems to the water chemistry.

Cur plexiglass can go a long way too if you can hide it well enough. this can also be used to separate two substrates and restrict overgrowth.


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