Well, in my process of consolidation I've been brainstorming ideas to make the mudskippers work with my puffer etc. Here's my solution.
I had seen this on some forum but I forget where. Basically, instead of spending lots of money to do custom acrylic and silicone, you can get the soap and shower basket plastic things that suction in your bathroom. However, in this case we're using them in the tank. I used a bit of plastic to seal off the holes on the bottom of the dispensers, and then filled them with sand.
Here's some examples.


And a full tank shot.

Not the most beautiful but quite functional and a solution I'm happy with assuming the suction holds...so far so good but it's only been an hour or so.