Help Me Design This

[Red Son]

Hello. I'm still new to the forums. I just made my introduction post so now I'm ready to ask questions :P.

In the not too distant future I hope to design, cut and build my own aquariums. I understand that it is a great amount of work and preparation, but that's why would I enjoy doing it. I love designing things. I love the way shapes and looks of certain objects create a mood and feel when you enter a room. I hope to create things that others would enjoy just as much as I do.

For now though, I'm learning about the basics of aquariums and the different aspects to it. Right now I have a 20 Gallon tank with basic light blue and dark blue epoxy coated gravel as the substrate. I have some live plants and a few fake ones, and a few ornaments, including a chinese dragon(whom has found himself overcome by the might and force of the snails) and a small tower. However, I've been surfing google images a lot lately and I have seen some aquarium set ups that I think are beautiful, and I would like to create scenes similar to them.

The main type of set up I've seen and favor the most is a dark type of substrate, almost black looking, covered with live plants. I assume that the green-carpet looking type of plant that covers the bottoms must be a type of moss. It also looks like, in many of them, there's a type of plant that almost looks like grass that would grow in the wild. I've even seen a plant that looks like a tree that is kept short bonsai style, and I'm not sure how such a thing could survive underwater, but it is awesome and I would like to try. I found some examples that I would like to share:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]
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The last two are my absolute favorites, and I'd like to create a mix of the two. As you can see, the majority of these aquariums have a dark substrate, except the one with the small tree, which seems to be a mix of rocks and white sand/gravel. Since I'm still new with aquariums, I can't identify the types of substrates and plants that are used here, which is what I'm needing help with. Can anyone tell me what they're using in these aquariums, and if there's special ways of setting these up? Thanks!

[fins_n_fur]

I can't help you directly, but if you go to Aquatic-Eden ([Only Registered Users Can See Links.]), you ought to find the more detailed information that you are looking for as well as award winning aquascaping ideas.

[i_am_511]

Yea those tank were in a aquascape contest. That guy who did the "tree" with the white sand. He has some really nice planted tanks. Yea that would be some work but it would be something to nice to pass up on. That is where i decided to go with the whole natural tank look. They call it EL natural. Ive had people over and they just stared inside for mins. Most people are used to seeing colorful gravel and some plastic plants and the normal human fake decor settings. Ive seen crazy things when it comes to aquascaping.

You know those round raised flower/plant beds that might be around a light post in peoples front yards. At my LFS they took slate and made a half circle in the back corners and filled them with small dark gravel and put plants in them. Looks like a landscape that would be in your yard. or people have moss wall by putting moss in mesh screen(look it up) they put the moss wall on the bottom of the tank to give a grass field look and then added whatever around it.

[MCHRKiller]

The 2 scapes you are looking at are fairly simple in design....both include mostly a good ground cover. For your fish truely scaped planted tank Id keep it simple, you could receate the core aspcets of these tanks with low lighting and no CO2 injection.

A standard double bulb strip light such as this one:
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.] would serve your needs nicely as it would provide you with 1.5WPG

You can also buy nice planted tank substrates, I personally prefer Flourite:
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]
Substrate such as this will give you that nice dark bottom, and provide iron naturally at your plants roots. For your 20G 1.5-2bags would be sufficient.

You will also need to dose fertilizer to start with some Seachem Flourish Comprehensive and Root Tabs would be a good combination.
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

A good easy ground cover plant is Four Leaf Clover
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

To recreate the grassy effect Jungle Val is a good easy alternative
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

To create the bonsai look put some moss on top of a piece of branchy driftwood:
[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

You can also hit up your local landscape company for some nice looking rockwork, and you can find some great pieces of wood to suit your needs online or at a LFS.

[Red Son]

Thank you both for your replies.

That Aquatic Eden site is just crazy. It does help greatly though since I now know some of the terms they use so I can continue my research further.

A few things I noted in my head: in a lot of cases, they tried hard to make some of the landscapes look like miniature mountain ranges, using rocks that have slanted angles, much like glacier-carved mountain sides look. Some of them remind me of the highlands of Scotland, I liked them a lot.

For my first design, I'm thinking maybe some white sand with petrified wood. I think I'm going to try to do a moss cover method for the bottom, although its gonna be difficult to anchor it to sand..perhaps I'll use small rocks that won't be visible under the moss to keep it down.

I'm going to be using a 10 gallon tank. I'll probably start working on it tomorrow, and order the moss on Thursday. I'll be photographing it as I do it. Thanks for the replies!

[Dixie]

Sounds like great fun. Be sure to share your pics with us. I would love to see the process and end results.

I was thinking about doing something with an empty 10g. tank I have this winter too. Something like that would take a while and be nice project. I might give it a shot too.