Looking for some ideas

[Trunks]

A few weeks ago, I got some decorative river bead pebbles. I decided they would be nice for in my gargoyle's tank.

Anyway, my dad works in a sheet metal fabrication plant, and I was thinking of asking him to form up a small plate to put in the bottom of her tank and use the pebbles to make a small "river". My basic idea is this.

Once I place the plate in the bottom, I plan on sealing it with silicone. Then, I'm going to full the small trough area with the pebbles, and pour water into it. The to notches on either side of the "river" is going to be either welded on, or a line of the silicone sealant, to keep the bedding from falling into the river.

The biggest problem I forsee so far, is getting the plate into the tank. Obviously, I want it to fit snug in the bottom of the tank. The problem is, The plastic rim at the top makes a small lip at the top, and I'm not sure how to get the plate past that lip. I'm considering dividing the plate in half, but I don't really want a gap left in between the two plates, because that could be a bit of a challenge to clean. The only other solution I can think of is to put the "river" right next to the glass, like this, but I really like having the land area on both sides.

Anyway, any input you have would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Olimpia]

The only thing I can think of to suggest is to make only the river and the immediate river beds out of the metal. Like so:

You can make like an "M" shape of metal, or something like that, that you could just insert into the tank. It can be snug but since it doesn't cover the entire bottom of the tank, you can easily stick in in there one way or another. Then all you'd ahve to do would be to bring the level of everything around it up by using something like river rock to raise up the subtrate a few inches. Then you put your substrate ontop and you can line the river with some moss. I love moss because it's cheap, and because it does a good job of keeping stuff like ecoearth out of places.

I hope this was some kind of help?

 

[AllGeckos]

I like the ideas I would do the second one with the water against the glass. I figure that way less crickets getting in there, and less substrate in their as well. I want to build one like that with some sort of waterfall leading into it, but I think my rh% would be to high.

I also like what olimpia said with only making the river section out of the sheet metal. If you made the river out of sheet metal and bent both long sides up straight... You could glue pebbles or what not onto the sides front and back that would look nice and also hold the substrate out leaving the river walls just slightly lifted from the rest of the floor.