Seperating Substrate

[mattee77]

Hi.
I need to seperate Tetra plant sustrate from my sand as the two are beginning to mix and its obviously making my sand look really dirty. I still need to access my plant substrate for planting any suggestions on a material to divide the two that is safe and that can be cut easily for planting

 

[dthoffsett]

It's nearly impossible to keep two different substrates from mixing together in your tank, to some degree anyways. I seem to recall a thread on here where someone wanted gravel and sand in their tank and used plastic planting pots to separate them. If I remember right they cut the top 2 inches or so off the pots then cut them down to the size they wanted (basically made them into strips) and siliconed them to the bottom of the tank creating a permanent barrier. Not sure what to suggest when your tank is already set up though.

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

If they are side by side, you can do a decent job by putting some type plastic divider between them. You will still get some spill over as you will have to leave the top of the divider below the substrate. If one is on top of the other though, there is nothiing you can do. The smaller material will always go to the bottom.