Using wood for dividers?

[mUAr_cHEe]

Have been doing the usual reading and researching and it is a little unnerving to learn that no matter how a rare of a rock, it would still affect water parameters over time.

First of all a rather stupid question: I intended to use rocks as a divider between two different substrates, specifically sand and soil. The original plan would be to strategically form a rock wall and then pour in the two substrate on either side of the wall until almost the whole wall is buried and leaving the top part of the wall exposed. Would the lesser surface exposure of the rocks slow down the calcium leak? (Just re-read and re-drafted this sentence for the 7th time but I cannot write it any clearer. Can you guys understand?)


How about the alternative to use drift-wood chips or perhaps sawn driftwood stakes/pieces to form the wall instead? Is this adviseable? I can only forsee that this will be alot of work, with the extra sawing/breaking, potential lost of natural beauty and extra cleaning to get rid of potential rust from the saw used.

[Urban Aquaria]

You can buy those smaller drift wood pieces from most LFS (usually meant for tying plants on), they come in various shapes (around the size of a hand) so you can just position and stack them together to create a barrier. I notice those small wood pieces are usually priced at around $1 each so they are relatively cheap.

Alternatively, you can also just cut a lengths of plastic strips (like those from file folders) of appropriate height and shape them along the barrier.

[Suzerolt]

Agree with the tip on small length of plastic strips.

I used old credit cards/ membership cards lying around the house for my tank. Inserted them at areas to 'contain' roots from spreading. I inserted these later on (not at day 1)
Daiso sells nice big sheets of plastic suitable for the purpose.

[mUAr_cHEe]

Thank you for the tips. Will look out for the smaller wood pieces. I have considered using old credit cards but I am worried about the iron particles in the magnetic stripe. Then again, maybe it can help to dose iron back into the tank.

[Shadow]

What fauna you have in mind? Unless you are planning for sensitive shrimps, its not really a problem.

As for aquascaping point of view, you need to make the divider to look natural and most likely you will need rocks to do that .

[mUAr_cHEe]

In the mean time, I am looking to get just some lower grade shrimps, tetras, maybe loaches or marbled hatchets. I know rocks will be alright for these fauna but I am keeping my options open for CRS in future.