Gravel Nets

[jonnyuk]

i'm breaking up my 40ltr planted tank and making it a cichlid tank for my shell dwelling multies.

i plan on keeping my vallis, swords and some cryps at the back of the tank.

as these little fish love to dig if i just planted them in sand they won't last 5 minutes. my idea was to plant in a ferts substrate, put some kinds net over this, then put the sand down.

questions

1: is this a good idea?
2: apart from expensive gravel net (that i can't actually find online but saw in mlfs) what else could i use?

cheers

 

[KittyKat]

Make a gravel net yourself?

For Mbuna, I have best results from planting the plants directly into the sand and placing smaller stones around the base so that the fish can't dig them up. Same for larger SA cichlids.